


Infinity

by AngieWithMels



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-16
Updated: 2015-08-25
Packaged: 2018-03-01 19:45:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 40,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2785478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngieWithMels/pseuds/AngieWithMels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a run-in with a woman in the Foundry, Felicity finds herself years in the past, back in her old office, and meeting Oliver Queen for the first time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> The prompt came up on tumblr. I decided to give it a shot.

She was always one step ahead of them, Felicity thought, chewing her thumb nail. No matter what happened, she was always one block further than they expected, always one more mile away in her getaway car, always.

It was always impossible.

The camera feed must be delayed, Oliver had assured her, after the woman had left them in the dust, again. So when Oliver had somehow, somehow managed to aim his arrow at the woman’s head, Felicity knew something wasn’t right. It seemed too easy of a fix.

The woman, Amelia P., according to what records Felicity was able to dredge up, was spinning around in the computer chair in the Foundry, a terrifyingly smug smile on her cherry red lips. “Mr. Queen, the Arrow, tell me, do you know what an infinite loop is?” Amelia smiled, twirling a pen in her fingers and tipping her head to the side. She looked completely unphased by the arrow pointed at her, instead continuing her lazy spin on the chair.

“How do you know my name?” Oliver growled, his voice modulator still on. He rolled his shoulders and released a first arrow, hitting the chair right by the intruder’s head. Her only response was a laugh. Then she fixed a gaze behind the vigilante, looking squarely at the terrified blonde woman behind him, who had been slowly backing up to make a run back upstairs.

“What about you, Ms. Smoak?” she asked, then quirking a smile as Felicity startled, “What is an infinite loop?”

“Do not speak to her,” Oliver barked out, stepping between them and bringing Felicity out of Amelia’s line of sight. Felicity let out a relieved exhale, her hands and knees shaking.

“Well one of you has to answer me,” Amelia’s voice echoed around the Foundry, “Or else my next bit won’t be as funny.”

“It’s a loop that loops infinitely,” Felicity blurted out, and she saw Oliver’s shoulders fall for a second, like he was sighing at her. “It goes on forever.”

Felicity could hear Amelia’s smile in her words, “Yes. And tell me, my computer genius, what makes a loop loop infinitely?”

“It… It could be a bug in the software.”

“What else?”

Felicity swallowed, her voice shook. Dammit, why was she still talking anyway? “It could mean that conditions for the next step haven’t been met.”

Amelia’s following laugh was a downright cackle. Felicity heard something charging, and saw a light emitting from her desk. Oliver was still standing inbetween them, blocking her view, but she heard him make a very confused

“Wha-?”

before she pushed him to the side.

* * *

 

Felicity jerks so hard she nearly punches the computer in front of her. Her heart beats hard in her chest, making her faint.

Was something in her mouth?

Felicity put her hand up to her lips, pulling out a… red pen? What the hell was happening? She turned in her seat, trying to get a grip on her bearings. This looked like the IT department in Queen Consolidated.

A man cleared his throat from behind her. “Felicity Smoak?”

Her hands slam on the table as she swerves around.

Oliver.

“Hi. I’m Oliver Queen,” he says hesitantly, his smile looking a bit amused at her odd reaction.

Holy shit.


	2. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felicity looked at the man in front of her for a long time, her body frozen in her computer chair. 
> 
> Oliver. Oliver Queen, the Arrow, one of her best friends and teammate looked at her with a fake smile on his face and a bullet-riddled laptop in his hands.

Felicity looked at the man in front of her for a long time, her body frozen in her computer chair.

Oliver. Oliver Queen, the Arrow, one of her best friends and teammate looked at her with a fake smile on his face and a bullet-riddled laptop in his hands.

She felt dizzy.

"Yes, Oliver. Oliver Queen. Mr. Queen. I know who you are," she said quickly, an uneasy expression freezing on her face. This felt like a dream, but the details were too real. She reached up to pinch her nose and tried to inhale, her favorite dream-spotting trick, but found herself unable to. 

Adrenaline pumped through her veins and her heart rate went through the roof. This was looking too much like real life.

Oliver cleared his throat and cocked his head to the side, obviously confused at her random ritual. She shook her head to clear her thoughts and decided to roll with it.

"Yes, Mr. Queen, what can I help you with?" she gave a practiced, customer-service smile.

He chuckled, "Please, call me Oliver, Mr. Queen is my father."

"Yes, but your father is dead." Felicity winced as the words came out. This was the second time this conversation had happened - not to mention all the times she went over the conversation in her head - and she still said the wrong thing. "I mean, he drowned. Of course that means he’s also dead. You were supposed to be dead too, but then you got saved!" Oh my God, shut up! "I mean, we're very glad you're back. Always happy to have people come back to life. Unless of course, you don't want them to come back to life. Like zombies. But how often does that happen?" Her voice was becoming more and more hysterical to her own ears, but Oliver maintained the vaguely-amused look he had had when she babbled in front of him the first time.

"But you obviously didn’t come here to hear me babble. Babbling which, by the way, is going to stop in three, two, one," she cleared her throat and avoided eye contact as she shuffled through a couple papers. Her face and ears felt like they were burning.

"I'm having some trouble with my computer and they told me you were the person I should see," he said with that fake, glued-on smile that she, over the years, had gotten very good at recognizing. "I was at my coffee shop surfing the web and I spilled a latte on it." He placed the destroyed laptop on the corner of her cluttered desk.

She had forgotten how small her IT office had been.

"Really?" she asked. She knew exactly how he was going to respond, but she said it anyway. "Because these look a lot like bullet holes."

"My coffee shop is in a bad neighborhood."

She snorted and laughed. She couldn't believe he had actually thought that would work on her. She continued to chuckle and turned her head to the side, looking at him like she would a lying child.

It was the wrong look to make.

She watched as his eyes changed subtly. Before they had been amused and had a practiced innocence. But now they hardened, and the corners of his smile tightened. To anyone else, it would look like nothing had changed.

But she knew him.

And he looked scary.

Even if she went so far as to say this was just a dream, a chill ran up her spine. If this whole thing was real, then he really didn't know her. Oliver Queen in 2012 was different from the one she knew. He had just gotten home, recently rescued off of the island. Just gotten back to Starling City.

Just killed a gang of men who had kidnapped him and Tommy a few days ago.

The mirth fell from her face like a lead weight in the ocean and she rolled back a little in her computer chair. The flush on her cheeks drained until she was white as chalk. She swallowed a lump in her throat and reached forward, meaning to take the laptop off of the desk and into her lap.

Oliver moved quickly, too quickly for a civilian, his veneer was cracking, and grabbed the computer, keeping it suspended between them. His voice was a careful, playful, and teasing, but she knew better. 

"I can take it to someone else, if you're not busy." He gave a small tug on the computer, but she only gripped it harder in response.

Her lips pressed into a line, and she had to take a deep breath before looking him in the eye. His blue eyes were so flat compared to what she was used to. Eventually she let go.

Diggle and Oliver's training kicked in, and a wave of relief went over her.

_"In case something bad happens, someone tries to interrogate you or you need to talk yourself out of a situation, you need to be able to lie and cover up vocally and with body language," John had said. She'd rolled her eyes, looking back at her computer._

_Oliver pulled her chair back so that she couldn't reach the keyboard and looked at her sternly. "Me and John are serious about this, Felicity. You need to be able to play the part of the innocent employee for Oliver Queen and lie convincingly. You have a pretty obvious tell."_

_"No I don't!" she said back, an embarrassed flush covering her cheeks. John and Oliver looked at each other and simultaneously rolled their eyes._

_"Don't you roll your eyes at me!" she exclaimed, affronted._

_"Lie about what color your shoes are," John offered, and she straightened her shoulders back._

_"If I pass the entrance exam," Felicity said sarcastically, "will you leave me alone?"_

_Oliver gave her a cocky grin that made her bristle, and she looked at her red pumps._

_"I'm wearing blue shoes," she said, and it sounded convincing to her own ears. Both Oliver and John looked at each other. Oliver laughed and John sighed._

_"Every time you lie, you move your left foot. You literally just tapped the floor," Oliver said, a smug smile on his face._

"Mr. Queen," she said smoothly, a practiced, pleasing smile on her mouth. Sara had drilled the girlish charm into her.

_"I can't tell you how many times I've managed to talk myself out of sticky situations. You can be the only blonde, white girl in the middle of China, and if you put up a sweet enough front, even the Triad will believe you're as innocent and dumb as a bunny," Sara'd said, cupping her own face and squishing her cheeks, "Who could not believe this face?"_

"In the five years you've been gone, good neighborhoods have turned into bad neighborhoods and vice versa," she smiled and made the conscious effort to crinkle her eyes, "You really must be more careful." She turned her chair, purposefully looking away from Oliver to reach under her desk. Sara's voice echoed in her ears.

_"Make yourself look at ease. Don't look at the person too much. An innocent person has nothing to hide. Look like you're completely trusting. Turn your back to them, even if it makes you more vulnerable."_

"What do you need me to do?" she said sitting up, a connecting wire in her hands. 

Oliver hesitated, the computer still in his grip before he slowly placed it down on the table. "If there is anything you can salvage from it, I would really appreciate it," he said, watching her carefully. She felt herself begin to sweat, but managed to keep herself calm.

"Of course. Could you write your phone number on this card, so I can call you when it's ready?"

* * *

 

Felicity spent a long time waiting to wake up. She kicked her desk, hard, and stubbed her toe in an effort to jerk herself from her dream, but found herself stubbornly in her desk, in the IT department, in 2012.

What the heck was going on?

Getting the information off the laptop was easy, she had already done it before. She knew exactly what was going to come up. The blueprints for the Exchange Building, the target of the still-free Deadshot, who had yet to be captured and “employed” by ARGUS.

So Felicity found herself with a bit of time on her hands. She decided to give it an hour before she called Oliver, looking at the number on the card. Her mind was so confused she couldn’t even think, couldn’t even begin to make sense of it all.

She really wanted a Big Belly burger. The thought to skip out and go through the drive-thru was tempting, but looking warily at her desk, she felt odd.

Being an IT girl at Queen Consolidated was so much different than being Vice President at Palmer Technologies.

She closed her eyes and counted backwards from ten. Okay, start at the top. What was the last thing she remembered?

Well the last thing she remembered was pushing Oliver out of the way and falling. And bright lights. And then coming-to at her desk. She chewed on the tip of a pen, a habit she thought she had kicked after so many side-glances from possible investors. She tapped her nails on the desk and did all sorts of anxious ticks before shaking her head clear and facing her computer.

The computer was at least a year obsolete even now. And compared to her state-of-the-art technology back in the Foundry, this one paled in comparison. She could cry.

A quick internet search did nothing to convince her this was all a weird misunderstanding – it was 2012. Oliver had only just returned from the island, the vigilante had just arrived in Starling City, and the Unidac auction was tonight. She clicked on a news article detailing the “Return of the Lost Queen.”

There it was. A picture of his fake smile as he waved at the press, and a slim, black-haired man with a giddy smile standing next to him. Felicity felt a faint smile ghost over her lips. Tommy Merlyn.

An immediate feeling of dread slammed into her. Her eyes widened and she looked around the department, finding herself alone. Her heart beat out of control. She felt out of breath. Her vision began to blacken on the edges. She was panicking.

Tommy was still alive.

Sara was still alive.

Moira was still alive.

Over 500 other people who died in the Undertaking were still alive.

Felicity watched her hands shake over the keyboard, unable to feel her fingertips. Her entire body felt like it had been buried in ice. Numb. Everything was numb. It was like an out-of-body experience.

Someone was calling her name on the outskirts of her consciousness. She felt her chair get whirled around and was able to see a silhouette in the light coming from the window. Blood rushed in her ears.

It was too much. So much was going to happen. She had to do so much.

“Felicity!” the figured grabbed her shoulders and gave her a firm shake. Her head snapped and everything came spinning into focus again. She put a hand to her forehead, her breath finally coming back to her lungs.

Oliver was kneeling in front of her, looking at her carefully. His face was carefully put together, his expression looked worried. Worried for her. But she knew better. He was wary that she had found out something incriminating on the laptop.

“Mr. Queen!” she gasped, finally, when her voice came back to her.

“Felicity,” he said, with just the right amount of concern, “are you feeling alright? Do you need me to get you anything? A glass of water?”

“No, no. I’m alright,” she started, and she could feel a babble coming on but couldn’t stop her numb lips from moving, “I was just thinking about my…” she trailed off, trying to think of a lie. Jesus Christ, why couldn’t she stop to think before trying to start a lie? “…best friend. Yes, my best friend. She was in a car accident last Christmas and I accidentally clicked on a news article about it and it brought all those emotions back. Haha!” she cringed at the laugh. Oliver’s eyes narrowed and looked over her shoulder towards her computer.

She knew he was probably looking at his own homecoming article that she had never closed.

“Felicity, tell me what’s going on,” his voice was low, and it sounded dangerous.

“I… I…” she stuttered, looking around the room frantically for something to jog her imagination. Her heart was in her throat, all the training and conditioning that Sara and John and Oliver had put her through was useless.

Going backwards in time wasn’t a scenario they had rehearsed!

“The laptop,” she said finally. Oliver cocked his head at her, but his look remained grim. Her hands started shaking again and they felt clammy.

He wouldn’t kill her if he thought she suspected something, would he?

Felicity’s anxiety went down a bit as she processed the idea. She took a deep breath.

No, he would never hurt her. The conviction finally made her relax.

“I was going to call you. About the laptop. I grabbed everything I could off of the drive.”

She turned towards her computer and minimized the article, pulling up the files she had found on the laptop. The blue and white outline of the Exchange Building popped up.

“This was the only thing I could pull up,” she said, giving a sideways glance towards the man next to her. He grabbed a chair from the other side of her desk and sat next to her. He looked in her direction and her eyes darted away, fixing back on the screen.

“What is it?” he asked.

She wanted to poke fun, say the familiar _I thought this was your laptop?_ but the uneasy feeling rested in her gut. This wasn’t the time to show her hand.

“It’s the Exchange Building,” she murmured.

“Never heard of it,” he replied.

She wanted to roll her eyes. It was so hard separating this Oliver from the Oliver she knew. That Oliver, the one in 2014, he knew the city like the back of his hand. The alleys, the secret hideouts, the many dead ends and short cuts. This Oliver was so freshly off the boat, he didn’t recognize the name of one of the biggest buildings in the city.

“It’s where the Unidac Industries Auction is scheduled to take place,” she said, tucking some hair behind her ear. Geez, why did she ever wear her hair this way?

He gave her a genuinely confused look. For all the training he’d given her about poker faces and putting up a front when you were lying through your teeth, he was pretty terrible at it. She felt a smile pull at the corners of her mouth, but refrained from saying anything.

Really there was no point in asking, she supposed. She knew exactly where the laptop came from. She knew exactly what was going to happen tonight. Heck, if all of this was what she thought it was, she knew exactly what was going to happen over the next two, two and a half years.

The rushing in her ears came back so she focused on the arrow of her mouse on the monitor, taking slow and deep breaths. Her eyes darted to the date in the corner of the screen. 2012. Okay. She looked at the time. 3:07 pm. She could do this. Just two more hours until she could go home and freak out then. She just needed to not freak out for two more hours.

Oliver was still looking at her.

Dammit, what had she said about all of this the first time?

“Look,” she said, and her voice cracked. She cleared her throat and felt a blush fighting its way up her neck, “I don’t want to get involved in any family drama, Shakespearean thing you have going on.” She waved her arms a little too animatedly during her metaphor and glued them back on her keyboard.

Oliver looked back and forth, “What?”

“Mr. Steele marrying your mom,” she said. He gave her the same blank stare. “Hamlet?” she prompted.

“I didn’t study Shakespeare at any of the four schools I dropped out of,” he said, giving a little shrug.

Felicity had, for some reason, hoped that she wouldn’t have to spell it all out to him, again. She wanted to shove him out of her office with a quick, “Deadshot is going to try to assassinate someone at the auction, he’s hiding in one of the buildings, you’re going to try to kill him but it’s not going to work. Please leave me alone so I can think about stuff,” but she had a feeling he would fight his way back into her office and demand answers.

“Mr. Steele is trying to buy Unidac Industries,” she said carefully, making sure her words didn’t give too much away. “And this laptop belongs to one of his competitors-…”

“Floyd Lawton,” he interrupted, nodding to himself.

“No, Warren Patel,” she corrected, pointing to the corner of the screen. She didn’t need to ask who Floyd Lawton was, so she decided not to.

He looked grim and stood suddenly. She looked up at him, a bit taken aback.

“Thank you, Felicity,” he said, and quickly walked out of her office.

She breathed a sigh of relief and placed her forehead on her keyboard. The computer made a few warning beeps, but she blocked it out.

She was going to need a lot of mint chip to process through all of this.

 

* * *

 

 

Felicity couldn’t even watch TV when she arrived at the townhouse, instead sitting down on her couch and staring blankly out of her window, numbly bringing spoonful after spoonful of ice cream to her mouth. The sun was just beginning to sink down, painting the sky in oranges and reds.

The shooting at the auction would be happening in just a few hours.

A heavy weight twisted in her stomach, making her nauseous. How many people had been shot and died this night from the curare of Deadshot’s bullets? She had no idea. She’d only briefly read an article in the paper the next day.

The departments at work had been buzzing with gossip, but all they talked about was how Walter, Moira, Thea, and Oliver had gotten away just fine. And just a few days later Detective Lance had arrested Oliver after seeing a video of him grabbing his uniform from a garbage can.

Oliver had never gone over the specifics of the fight with Deadshot. She had never really asked which building Lawton had been hiding in, or how many waiters handing out _hors d'oeuvres_ had gasped their last breaths looking at millionaires scramble around them.

As dumb as it sounded, Felicity hadn’t paid much attention because, well, the financial part of Queen Consolidated hadn’t been her job. Her job was making sure that Mrs. Feltman in accounting didn’t install too many toolbars on her Internet Explorer. (That had been a rude awakening when, as soon as Oliver had left, Felicity received a phone call from a familiar and upset woman screeching though the receiver, “Porn! My homepage is porn!”)

She could hit herself for not asking more questions, for not paying more attention to the actions of the vigilante. Surely the police department had released a press conference and gave more details about the event. Surely, if she’d been fucking listening to the events in the city around her all those years back, she would be able to do something more than eat 900 calories of ice cream on her couch!

She yelled out in frustration, throwing her spoon to the side. What the hell was she going to do? She wasn’t supposed to know Oliver’s secret identity yet. She wasn’t supposed to know for weeks from now! She didn’t even know if he was using the Foundry yet. And Verdant certainly hadn’t been built, so she couldn’t even scout out the place pretending to party. Had he gotten a burner phone for Laurel and Detective – no, Captain – no, Detective Lance yet?

And even if he had, she thought, looking at her tiny tablet, would she even be able to find the number and give him information anyway? Sure, it had a removable keyboard, but it was hardly hacking ready. It was a far-cry from the one that Oliver had gifted her.

 She gave a wary glance towards her bedroom. She did have a fairly powerful desktop on the desk opposite of her bed. She left the living room and walked over, abandoning her nearly-empty pint of ice cream to peer in at the machine waiting for her.

Well, she supposed, even if she wasn’t going to hack the cell towers, (because honestly, what would she say to him when he picked up the phone? “Hey Oliver, I’m from the future and I know you’re the Arrow. Oh, I mean the vigilante, I guess you’re not going by the “Arrow” yet”?) she could always look up a bit about her future teammates.

Roy was obviously an easy search. Just a quick google gave her arrest records, and a bit of circumventing the blockades in the police database found her an address. It was a bit useless information, to be honest. She already knew where he lived.

Sara, though. Sara was going to be difficult. The only things that came up when she googled “Sara Lance” were a couple of online obituaries.

Felicity chewed on her lip. Sara had been a good friend to her, she knew that. But Sara had not been very forthcoming about the details of her living with the League of Assassins. Right now, Felicity pondered, she might still be in Nanda Parbat, working under her alias: _Ta-er al-Sahfer_. Or even off at some other country, assassinating.

She gave the name a half-hearted search, but the heaviness of the day’s events weighed on her shoulders and her eyelids. She looked at her phone.

It was weird, looking at the screen. No new messages. No missed calls. No Oliver trying to reach her for an emergency, no Diggle asking if she could pick up a meal for him and Lyla as they laid exhausted, with a screaming baby between them. No Roy giving her a curt message saying he had gotten home safe.

A sad smile reached her face, before her lip quivered. She looked around self-consciously before shutting off her computer. She could install a scan for her friends later, get access to the city cameras and facial-recognition software some other time. Right now, all she wanted to do was cry. And sleep.

She collapsed face-down on her bed as the sun sank down, the shadows lengthening in her room.

She muffled her exhausted sobs in her pillow, but sleep came quickly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't forget to follow me at angelaandmels.tumblr.com for updates and my ramblings.
> 
> I'm planning on updating at least once every two weeks. I know, I know, it's a big gap between chapters. Hopefully, though, now that I'm on winter break and have a whole month to dick around, I'll be able to get a good buffer up.
> 
> Comments and criticisms are appreciated. :)


	3. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Of all the things Felicity hated about being backwards in time: not having her friends, the suffocating, near-constant feeling of impending doom, the confusion, the thing she hated least was her job.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a few days early! I actually finished it a couple days back and thought about sitting on it for a while but what's the fun in that? Enjoy!

Three people had died the night Floyd Lawton attacked. Walter Steele and the rest of the Queen brood made it out with their lives, just like the first time. This time, Felicity watched the news reported list the names and she committed it to memory. The pictures came up on screen: a young man, a waiter. A young girl, a date. An old man, a bidder.                            

She vomited three times that morning before her stomach settled completely.

* * *

 

Of all the things Felicity hated about being backwards in time: not having her friends, the suffocating, near-constant feeling of impending doom, the confusion, the thing she hated least was her job. Working in IT had been fairly easy before, and now it simply numbed her mind. Her body was used to getting up early to help Ray with presentations and her nights were long with schmoozing with potential-investors and fighting crime.

Waking up at 7:30 and getting back home at 6pm was a breeze compared to her former life.

The feeling of impending doom was probably the worst part of being backwards in time.

Felicity spent the next five nights tossing and turning in her bed, researching on her computer, and tossing coins to try to make her decision.

Should she reveal the knowledge she had?

Of course, doubts filled her mind. What if the past two years had simply been a dream she’d undergone after snoozing away at her desk before Oliver Queen jumped into her life?

But of course that was immediately dispelled. The computer problems coming to her desk were ones she’d seen before. Every day was a constant state of déjà vu. Every night she came back home, an uneasy feeling in her stomach as she watched the news, hoping for a big event to happen that she didn’t remember.

Nothing. Everything was the same as she remembered it.

She looked down at her bitten-up nails. After two days, they’d started bleeding and she’d gone out to the pharmacy to buy some anti-biting polish to try and stop the bad habit before it cemented itself like it had during finals her senior year at MIT.

Certain other things were different, too. Her hair was longer. And drier. She was still using a box-bleach instead of going to her favorite hair salon and was defiantly holding on to her split ends. Her clothes were plainer and her body was… well.

During her two years on the Arrow team, she had gotten much more physically fit. Going immediately back, two years in the past, she was out of shape.

* * *

 

Queen Consolidated valued its workers working at their peak performance. Several studies had been funded by the company to figure out new ways to make their employees work harder and smarter. A bounty of their efforts was the gym, located on the third floor.

Felicity slammed her hand on the red button on the treadmill, bringing the death-trap to a stop. She braced herself on the handlebars, wheezing. She managed to bring her eyes up to the monitor.

12 minutes. 1 mile.

She put her head back down and tried to get her breathing back under control. The muscles in her arms shook and her calves were screeching and she knew she should start her cool-down immediately to keep them from cramping up, but she couldn’t manage the energy to straighten herself up to walk.

“If you hold your arms above your head, you’ll catch your breath faster.”

Felicity yelped and jumped, nearly falling off of the treadmill in the process. She heard the man behind her make a “Whoa!” before she felt his hands steading her on her back. She turned to look at her savior.

Tommy Merlyn smiled his wolfish smile back at her probably dumb-looking, tomato-red face.

“Haha, wow, you are sweaty. How fast were you going there?” he brought his hands away from her back and looked around shoulder, “Oh. Just starting, huh?”

Felicity couldn’t even find the decency to be embarrassed and she grabbed his arms. His smile faded into a confused look.

“T-Tommy?”

It was like seeing a ghost, and it brought all the nervousness and anxiety of her situation back up to the surface. Tommy. Oliver’s best friend. Laurel’s lover. The very man whom she had heard say his last words right before the roof of CNRI collapsed and killed him.

His eyes scanned her face, trying to understand where he knew her from. He seemed to come up blank, because an uncomfortable smile pasted itself on his mouth, “I uh… Do I know you?”

Felicity looked at him with wide eyes before abruptly letting him go, running her hands on the front of her sweatpants, “N-No. No. No, of course you don’t.” Adrenaline flooded through her veins and she suddenly felt like she could run twenty miles no problem, as long as it was away from the man in front of her.

He looked at her carefully and Felicity had the sudden realization that he probably thought that she knew him from a party or that they…

Groan. Or that they slept together.

Before he could ask something completely embarrassing and force her to make up a story, she blurted out the only thing she could think of.

“You don’t work here.”

His confused became amused, and he looked at her like she had grown two heads.

“I mean, this is the Queen Consolidated gym. You don’t work here,” she managed to babble out, “You’re rich. And your father is Malcolm Merlyn. You don’t work here.” Her brain was still struggling as all of her blood was still in her legs. For heaven’s sakes, she realized, had she worked herself so hard that she was hallucinating? Was she talking to thin air right now? Her hand twitched to reach out and touch the man in front of her again.

Thankfully she managed to keep that compulsion under control.

“Tommy, can you at least have the courtesy to not seduce employees when you’re here with me?”

Oh please no.

Oliver came strolling in the gym, a towel over his shoulder. His easy-going smile changed just a bit as he realized who his friend was talking to. Turned just a bit more calculated.

“Ms. Smoak! Nice t-“

And that was all she heard him say. The rest filled up like radio static and she watched his and Tommy’s figures start to lean towards her before everything went black.

* * *

 

Her head felt like it had been hit with a sledge hammer. People were yelling her name. They sounded concerned. Her head moved back and forth and her hair caught on the rubbery surface beneath her. Her eyes fluttered, and she held a hand to block out the lights shining down.

The man on her left spoke, “Do you think we should call 911, Ollie?”

The man on her right placed a hand on her shoulder, “I think she’s waking up. Felicity? Are you alright?”

She opened her mouth to say something but it came out as a groan. The hand that was blocking on the light went to rub the back of her head. An arm pulled her up to a sitting position, and she felt her ponytail get brushed to the side as the man on her right looked at it.

“You’re not bleeding,” he said, and she connected the voice to Oliver, “Can you see just fine? What’s your name? Do you know the date?”

“Um…” she drifted off. The pain in the back of her skull was very distracting. “Felicity Meghan Smoak. It’s September 15th, 2014 - I mean, 2012.”

“Your vision? Is it blurry? Do you have any black spots?”

She heard Tommy murmur something but she couldn’t pick out the words. She opened her eyes and they adjusted to the light. She groaned, “I can see just fine. What happened?”

“Here, let’s get you off the treadmill, first,” Tommy said, placing his hand on her elbow. Oliver did the same with her other arm, and they staggered her a couple feet before she plopped down in a chair. She winced, her tailbone feeling a bit injured as well.

“You straight-up fainted when you saw Ollie,” Tommy looked at his friend, a grin creeping back onto his worried face, “Making women swoon and you’ve only been back for a few weeks. Not losing your touch, I see.”

Felicity tried to roll her eyes but everything in her head hurt so she dropped her head down to rub her neck with a groan. Why was Oliver here? Why was Tommy here? None of them ever came here.

She bent her head down even further as she realized that well, she couldn’t be sure of that, because _she_ was the one who never came to the corporate gym.

“When was the last time you ate?” Oliver asked, and he bent his knees to try to look at her face. She forced herself to look at the ground and away from his eyes. She was still out-of-breath and with a pounding headache, the last thing she felt like doing was looking at him.

“Um,” her voice shook and she swallowed, trying to get her vocal cords under control. Now that she thought about it, her whole body was trembling with the aftermath of the adrenaline rush Tommy had given her, “Lunch, probably.”

She saw Oliver check his watch and she looked at the clock on the opposite wall. It was only six. She looked back on the ground. She could only hope someone else would come up with an excuse for her, because even thinking was off the table with her head throbbing.

“It’s only six. It shouldn’t be low blood sugar,” Tommy said and Felicity almost sighed out loud.

“I must have pushed myself too hard, that’s all.”

Oliver quirked an eyebrow and she saw a corner of his mouth tug upwards, “You should probably go see if you have a concussion anyway.”

Felicity chose to ignore the suggestion for the chance to retain her pride. The last thing she planned on doing on a Wednesday evening was admitting to a nurse that she had fainted on a treadmill after running a mile slower than some people walked and seeing two billionaire playboys walk into the room.

“Why are you two in here, anyway? Don’t you have a billionaire gym to go work out?” Or maybe the basement of an abandoned factory to climb the salmon ladder?

“She can’t be concussed, she’s too sassy,” Tommy said and laughed. She felt a traitorous blush work its way across her cheeks and she stared at her shoes so hard she thought they might actually go up in flames.

Oliver opened his mouth to say something but she stood up quickly and grabbed her water bottle off of the treadmill, “Sorry for disrupting you guys,” she rushed past them and nearly ran to the door but managed to keep it to a hurried speed-walk, “I’m going to get some rest.”

She may or may not have run to the car blushing so hard she practically glowed in the dark.

* * *

 

The back of her head ached incredibly when she woke up the next morning, but she managed to fight back the urge to call off of work. The chances of her missing some step that would lead to her becoming a part of Team Arrow were too great.

She couldn’t really remember when or why Oliver came to her the second time. Was it the Vertigo in the syringe or had it been the arrow from Malcolm Merlyn? Or, geez, didn’t he make something up about losing contact with an old friend who ended up being the kingpin of a family-fun robber gang?

Felicity nearly ripped her hair out of her head worrying when he was going to show up in her office next. Then her hair started _actually_ falling out because she knew Oliver was only a couple days away from being arrested as the vigilante, throwing a huge party at the mansion, and nearly being assassinated in his bedroom by one of Merlyn’s henchmen.

Working late into the night on a server update that really didn’t need her to be there but her supervisor insisted upon brought a feeling of dread that pushed past the impatience. The task came with the familiar feeling of déjà vu that came with everything else in her life, but she doubted that the boredom she was feeling had left such an impression on her that she remembered it with such clarity.

Then, while she was busy scrolling through data and feedback from the servers, her supervisor tapped her on the shoulder and said, “Mr. Steele had requested you to see him.”

The ride up in the elevator had her heart pounding in her chest so hard she thought she might have another panic attack or fainting spell. Fainting twice in just as many days was not good for her reputation.

Walter Steele was about to take the first step in finding out about Moira, about the Queen’s Gambit, and about the Undertaking.

Staring at the brass doors in front of her and her own reflection, she tried to regulate her breathing. She pulled her shoulders back, straightened her back, and closed her eyes for the last ten floors.

The only plan she could think of was to do what she had done the first time.

The elevator dinged and she marched out of it. This was the memory that had been burned into her memory. The mortification she had felt when her manager had told her to go up to Mr. Steele’s office. The leg-shaking fear she had felt going up floors 5-20. The indignant anger that had brought her all the way up to the top floor and had her storming into her boss’s boss’s boss’s office and had her slam her hands on the table and _sass_.

Dear God she was going to sass Walter Steele for the second time.

“I want to know one thing,” she said firmly, “Why am I being fired?”

She nearly died in a puddle of mortification when she saw him cock his head in confusion – something she had apparently missed the first time around – and say, “Ms. Smoak, is it?”

She hesitated. She seemed to remember saying something about her “so-called supervisor” and using air-quotes the first time around, but instead it now felt like her tongue was making all the wrong shapes in her mouth.

“You’re not being fired, Ms. Smoak,” Walter said, folding his hands in front of him, “Why would I fire you? You’re one of the best members of our technical division.”

“Y-yes I am,” she said tentatively when he paused, and then she bit her tongue and counted backwards from five in her head.

“No, I didn’t bring you up here to be fired,” he said, pulling out a packet from a folder, “it’s because I wanted you to look into something for me.” He passed the packet to her, and she grabbed it with a surprisingly steady hand.

“A variance of 2.6 million dollars on a failed investment from three years ago. It was authorized by my wife. I was hoping you could find out some of the details of the transaction for me.”

She flipped the first couple of papers over as she looked over the numbers. Felicity from 2012 had been confused at the data and the names and the percentages. This time the knowledge came to her easily. It would be easier to track the information down.

Walter cleared his throat and she looked back at him, “Discreetly,” he said, nodding towards the packet.

She smiled, “I’m excellent at doing things discretely, Mr. Steele.” She turned and began to walk out of the office before scrunching her eyes shut. She spun back around, “I mean, not discretely as in,” she wiggled her eyebrows, “but as in” and she brought a finger to her pursed lips.

He gave her a patient smile and she nearly died from the embarrassment.

“Thank you for not firing me,” she blurted out before jetting away from the office, trying not to run because the walls were glass and he would be able to see her.

* * *

 

Felicity found herself unable to keep from delving into the papers. The first time they had been handed to her, she had gotten a headache trying to make sense of all the spreadsheets so late at night and had simply placed it on her nightstand to get a look at the next morning.

This time it was more. Adrenaline and excitement and dread kept her awake as she tapped away on the keyboard in her room. She didn’t bother looking for a startup company or tax returns or patents, instead she looked right into Tempest and the transaction for the warehouse in the Glades.

Her body practically hummed with excitement. It was like hitting the next objective in a quest. She was one step closer to meeting Oliver.

That was, of course, if she could manage to do everything in the right order.

She could speed it up. She could go to the warehouse. She could call Oliver with the information and have him piece the puzzle together. With months to spare!

She wrung her hands together and began to pace her room. Her computer whirred behind her and she made a mental note to order new parts to keep the thing from being overworked and catching on fire when she heard an alert go off

She fell back into her computer chair, gliding a few feet to find herself in front of the monitor. It had picked up a hit on Roy. She chewed on her lower lip, listening in on the police scanners. From what it sounded like, he’d been caught being ridiculously and loudly drunk on the street and was being taken to jail for the night.

She heard his voice in the background, “Tell your wife I have to cancel our date.”

He made a groan afterwards that made her think someone had punched him in the gut and she winced, covering her face with her hands. How much longer before Roy would steal Thea’s purse and begin to turn his life around? How many more months after that before Oliver would take him under his wing? How many more punches to the gut by agitated policemen, kicks by thugs on the street, and arrows through the leg before he would become the younger brother of Team Arrow?

She turned off the police scanner and sat quietly. She slowly moved to her bed, picking up the blankets and burrowing herself underneath them.

She stared at her ceiling wide-awake until the sun began to rise and she had to drag herself out of bed to go to deliver her findings to Walter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Probably the worst part about writing this chapter was the need to use an exact date. Eugh. I put one in but don't expect it to be too binding. 
> 
> As always, follow me at angelaandmels.tumblr.com for updates about my fics and general fandom-related things.
> 
> Feel free to send me comments, prompts, etc.


	4. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver Queen is arrested for suspicion of being Starling City's vigilante.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! Sorry for the delay! 
> 
> If you've been following me on tumblr, you'll know that my laptop totally died on me last week, so I had to buy a new one and then scramble to get this chapter together.
> 
> That being said, you might notice that this chapter is holy-balls long! Longest chapter I think I've ever written for anything. So please enjoy!

Walter Steele prided himself on being one of the hardest workers of Queen Consolidated. He woke up before the sun rose, showered, at his breakfast, put on a suit, pecked his wife on the lips, and was usually the first man in the building, only needing to say hello to the security guards who worked there overnight.

So he was very surprised to see a woman in his office, her hair tied in a neat ponytail, browsing through something on her phone when he stepped out of the elevator and onto the top floor.

“Mr. Steele!” Felicity said, and shoved her phone into her pocket like she’d just been caught texting in class, “Good morning!”

“Yes. Good morning Miss Smoak. I see you’re here rather early.”

“Oh, yes. Well, I think you deserved to have a look at these papers and the information I dug up about that “failed investment” that your wife went into.” Felicity used her fingers for air quotations before ruffling through the binder she had placed on Walter’s desk.

“And what did you find?” Walter sat down as Felicity ruffled around.

“The company that your wife invested in doesn’t exist,” Felicity said, before handing over the stacks of paper. There was no real use in pausing for suspense, she decided, before carrying on, “But the name did lead back to an organization called “Tempest,” she pulled another paper from her binder, this time a print-out from Google Maps, “They bought a warehouse in the Glades riiiight… here.” She tapped on a location on the map which had been circled in red marker.

Walter’s brows furrowed and Felicity had to bite the inside of her cheeks to keep from saying anything. She knew what was in the warehouse. She knew why it was there. She knew so much that her hands shook with the desire to blurt it all out. She had to tell _someone_.

“Thank you, Miss Smoak. I appreciate the help,” Walter didn’t even look up at her, instead firmly concentrated on the papers in front of him. Felicity couldn’t have been happier than he seemed to not notice her shaking like a leaf.

“No problem, Mr. Steele,” she managed to choke out, and walked briskly to the elevator.

* * *

 

It was still horrifyingly early when she got back down to her office. None of the non-essential lights were on, and when she looked at a clock she nearly groaned.

5:34 am.

It would be two or more hours before her supervisor would even come in, and even longer before she had anything to really do. A cup of coffee sat next to the keyboard, but it felt like all of her organs were still shaking from the resistance to blurt out way too much information to the CFO and future-kidnappee of Malcolm Merlyn.

When was Oliver going to come to her next?

Felicity spent the next _five hours_ tinkering around with some code. Her supervisor and coworkers came in but the day was moving hideously slow. Slowly Felicity began to redo her networking that she had built up over the past two years working with Team Arrow.

Felicity was chewing her lip, wondering if hacking the Starling City Police Department from her work computer would be a good idea or a very bad idea – she had her tracks covered pretty well, but still – when an alert popped up on the screen.

She cocked her head in confusion. That was odd. The only searches she had going, Sara, Roy, and the vigilante, were all on her computer at home. The only alerts that went off in the IT department were Queen Consolidated-related, so the IT could do a quick scrubbing and immediately contact any lawyers. Felicity’s brain went into overdrive, furiously trying to remember anything that had affected Queen Consolidated’s image and stocks back in 2012.

She clicked the link and it opened up to the Starling City Sentinel’s website, the main article in large, red letters reading “Oliver Queen Arrested for Suspicion of Being the Vigilante.”

Felicity’s heartbeat pounded in her chest as she read through the article. The details were sparse, the police department apparently not having issued a statement yet, leaving the journalist who wrote the article to instead try and pull their own conclusions.

The author wrote a long list of coincidences surrounding Oliver’s reunion to the City with sightings of the vigilante. Felicity could’ve pulled her ponytail out, looking at the information in front of her. The vigilante had showed up only a few days after Oliver had. Why hadn’t he given it a month or two?

The memory of reading the article the first time squirmed its way to the surface of her brain. That was right. She knew something was off about Oliver Queen the first time he’d visited her. Reading this article had convinced her that there was something even more mysterious about the airhead playboy who knew nothing about Hamlet but held a bullethole-riddled laptop.

She bit her lip, her hands hesitating over the keyboard as she found herself at a crossroads. The last time this had happened, Felicity had laid in her bedroom, mulling over the events and trying to think of a more reasonable situation. When the vigilante had been spotted while Oliver was on house arrest and cleared of all charges, she had breathed a sigh of relief. But that nagging thought had always been there, especially when he came to her again and again with less reliable stories.

“What the fuck!” a voice yelled out from the other side of the room. It startled her so hard that her hands slammed down on the keyboard, doing all sorts of weird things to the webpage in front of her.

Immediately the IT department came back to life. What had seemed like a slow Tuesday was now ramping up to be one of the busiest days of the IT department’s existence. Her supervisor was holding his cellphone in one hand and his desk phone in the other and turning a unique shade of red.

Right, she thought, looking back at the monitor in front of her and bringing her screen back from the chaos her hands had caused. Time to scrub.

 

* * *

 

The day Oliver was scheduled for his bail hearing, the IT department, and really, all of Starling City, was abuzz with gossip. Samantha, one of her coworkers, had a friend in the courtroom who was texting her with details. Felicity listened with one ear, focusing her other attentions on the twitter feed in front of her.

The hashtag #QueenVigilante was trending, and a few people were inside the courtroom, live tweeting the whole thing.

The first time this happened, Felicity was doing everything _but_ listening to the gossip. Now she couldn’t keep her eyes off of it all. A few of the tweets and theories were hitting far too close to home. She briefly wondered if she should hack into their profiles and block the tweets from being seen by the public.

The details were simple and she had had a fairly good memory of what had happened the first time. Everything seemed to be unfolding the way she remembered.

“OMG! Some chick just walked in here and made herself Oliver Queen’s lawyer like she owned the place! #QueenVigilante” from some person who apparently was in court to challenge her speeding ticket but “accidently” walked into the wrong courtroom.

“CNRI lawyer Laurel Lance is representing Oliver Queen in the #QueenVigilante case” from Starling City Sentinel’s twitter page. They then went on to describe the cost of bail.

It was some ridiculously large amount of money that made Felicity’s wallet wince in sympathy but easily payable by the Queen brood, and an ankle bracelet to track Oliver Queen’s every move.

The next two hours were spent making sure the company’s firewall was strong. She remembered this – a bunch of cut rate hackers from the newspapers and probably professionals paid by Merlyn himself trying to gain access to Queen Consolidated data to see if they could connect Oliver to the vigilante.

Of course, she thought, sending one pesky IP address down a faulty pathway that would give them a terrifying virus, Merlyn was planning on eliminating Oliver Queen anyway.

Around one her head started to feel light. The exhaustion of the all-nighter and the hunger from eating a light breakfast at three in the morning was beginning to take its toll. Felicity sucked in her cheeks, looking around the room.

It looked like a server was on fire.

Feeling just a touch guilty but her stomach grumbling a command she couldn’t refuse, she tiptoed over to Gary the supervisor’s office.

“For fuck’s sake Martha – if you don’t want your homepage to be porn, _maybe you shouldn’t look at porn at work_ ,” Gary hissed into the receiver before slamming it down on the handle. Felicity jumped at the noise.

Gary was an older man, easily fired up and the sudden influx in activity did not do well for his complexion, which was now covered in red, blotchy spots.

She cleared her throat, “Gary? I’m going to go to lunch?”

“Lunch?” Gary’s wild eyes looked at her and she felt a flush of anger run down her spine. He was _not_ going to say no to her. “But it’s only…” Gary looked at his laptop, “Oh. Yeah, go ahead.” He shooed her away with a hand and Felicity scurried out of the office before he could change his mind.

 

* * *

 

 

“Smoak!” a voice called out as Felicity entered the lobby. The department seemed so busy she doubted anyone would notice if she were to take a longer lunch, so she’d decided to leave her brown-bagged sandwich in the refrigerator for tomorrow. An all-nighter and lots of stress called for a nice, greasy burger and maybe a strawberry milkshake at Big Belly Burger.

Speaking of lots of stress, a cool-as-cucumber Tommy Merlyn jogged across the floor to reach her side, matching her strides despite her hurried pace to the door.

“I was just looking for you! You know, I can’t remember your first name for the life of me. I’m like, ninety-five percent sure it starts with an ‘F’ though. Faith? Fiona?”

“Felicity,” Felicity grumbled.

“Right, Felicity. Want to party tomorrow?”

Felicity nearly tripped over her own two feet but managed to right herself before she could make a fool of herself. She spun around to look at the man, who wore the charming grin she was sure made lots of women faint on their treadmills.

“Party?”

“Yeah,” Tommy’s grin was almost contagious, but she managed to keep her own smile from forming with sheer luck, “Oliver’s throwing a “house arrest” party tomorrow night. He said it was going to be something along the lines of… Burning man meets Shawshank Redemption.”

“Why am I invited?” Felicity looked around, halfway preparing to see a camera crew and for Tommy to blurt out something along the lines of “You’ve been Punk’d!” but they were surrounded by nothing more than a few professionals with briefcases.

This was definitely _not_ how it happened the first time around.

Tommy shrugged at her disbelief, “Ollie wanted to invite you. I think your fainting spell really caught his attention,” he gave a roguish wink at the suggestion and Felicity couldn’t keep the blush away from her cheeks.

“I-I don’t know. I have a lot of work and stuff. Plus a prison party isn’t really my scene,” she managed to stutter out, but Tommy clasped her hands in a _very_ cheeky grab, holding her hands against his chest. She tried to sputter something but ended up just opening and closing her mouth.

She could feel his heartbeat. It would’ve brought tears to her eyes if she hadn’t been so mortified.

“Please Felicity? For me?” his blue eyes tore down her defenses. How could such a tall, dark, and handsome look like such a puppy?

“Um, sure,” she mumbled, and he released her hands immediately.

He gave another wink and pointed a finger-gun at her, “Party starts at nine! I’m sure you know the address.” And with another smile, he turned and headed towards the secretary desk.

Oh yeah, she was definitely going to need a burger.

 

* * *

 

 

Chewing on her fries that were mercilessly covered in ketchup, Felicity ruminated on the earlier exchange.

Oliver had requested her personally?

Maybe that was Tommy just teasing her, she thought, taking a bite out of her pickle spear. That seemed like the kind of thing he’d do. She reached around to the back of her head, where the flesh was still more than a little tender. She winced and went back to her burger.

Oliver hadn’t invited her the first time. No one had. Although she was sure she could’ve showed up and it was likely more open-door than the heavy iron gate and large security guards would suggest. Jeremy, the office coffee-grabber had gone and talked relentlessly about how wild it had been. He was most definitely not explicitly invited.

But she was.

Licking some burger-juice off of her thumb, she was lost in thought.

Maybe he was trying to throw her off the trail? That seemed plausible. Oliver never took chances. If he got a weird vibe this go-around that he hadn’t detected the first time he came to her office, it was a very Oliver Queen-like move to invite her to a party where he would be declaring his innocence.

After all, it would be impossible for a smart woman to believe that the playboy billionaire with an ankle bracelet tracking his every move would be the same man spotted wearing a green hood and shooting arrows across town.

Honestly, she had to admit, if he’d invited her to the party the first time, she would’ve doubted herself more. He was a smart man. Taking a sip of her milkshake, she whimpered in disappointment when the straw came up empty.

Well, she sighed, wiping her greasy fingers on her napkins, time to go back to work.

 

* * *

 

 Work for the rest of her shift and all of the next day was pretty standard. No surprise visits from playboys, no requests from the CFO, no more alerts on her computer at work or at home, and lots of tossing and turning while she tried to sleep.

The only thing to really do was keep hackers at bay with a few key strokes and pick at her turkey sandwich while her stomach twisted with anxiety for the coming party at the Queen mansion.

So when Felicity returned to her home at 6:15 and leaned against the sink in front of her mirror to try to conceal the dark circles under her eyes, she gave a sideways glance towards her closet. She would wear the blue, sequined dress. It was flashy, she’d probably blend in well if she held a cocktail in one hand and her phone in the other.

“Wait,” she said to herself, looking at the reflection in the bathroom mirror, “When did I buy that dress?”

She hastily set down the makeup brush and rushed into her room, throwing the closet doors open.

Of course. 2012 Felicity didn’t own cute cocktail dresses. The only formal wear she had was in the back corner. A red, floor length gown that she had worn to the Queen Consolidated holiday gala in December that had been torn when she’d infiltrated the hidden casino in the Glades.

Oh yeah, if she didn’t want to stick out, that was _not_ the dress to wear.

“Shoot,” she muttered, rapidly pushing back hangers. Felicity of 2012 wasn’t a huge fan of fashion because she hadn’t needed to wear nicer things all that often. She pushed back button down shirt after button down shirt in varying colors and hangers full of smart pencil skirts and slacks.

The perfect wardrobe for a woman who worked in the IT department and preferred to drink her wine in her pajamas.

“Shoot!” she exclaimed again, looking around her room as though the blue dress might be hidden on top of her hamper or something. Muttering expletives as she paced around her room, she checked the clock on her bedside table.

It was still early, she figured. She could run out and buy something. She could just do her makeup first, eat something carby so she didn’t get too tipsy, and probably arrive to the party earlier than expected.

Settling back in front of her mirror, she got back to her foundation.

 

* * *

 

 

After a dinner of perhaps more pasta than she’d anticipated, and an impromptu trip to the nearby prom-dress store, whose owner seemed very confused to see an adult purchasing a blue, silky minidress, Felicity found herself in the Mini Cooper, driving up the long avenue to the Queen mansion. She hadn’t had her blue suede pumps and had decided on her panda flats instead.

No one would be looking at her feet anyway, she had decided. And the ability to run easily appealed to her more and more as the Queen mansion loomed over her car.

Next to the Lamborghinis and Jaguars, the chauffeur seemed more than a little unimpressed by the tiny thing’s engine and automatic transmission, but he took her keys with no more than a disappointed smile.

Well she wasn’t going to fault him.

The clock in her car had said it was only just past nine, but the music thrumming through the stone walls of the mansion gave the impression that the party had been going on for a while. Someone led the way to the pool house and she tried not to give the impression that she knew her way around the mansion probably better than her guide did.

“Oh my God,” she whispered as she was brought back outside. Strobe lights were going in all sorts of directions and the bass in the music was turned up so high that the ground seemed to shake. She looked around the lawn with wide eyes.

Were there… Cages?

“Really? Women in cages?” she said and could barely hear herself over the music.

“Felicity!” Tommy’s voice was somehow the right frequency to sound loud and clear over the music. He grabbed her arm, pulling her over the bar that seemed to have popped out out of nowhere from the perfectly manicured lawn that was Moira Queen’s pride.

The music was somehow muffled when she hopped on one of the barstools upon Tommy’s prompting.

“I was worried you weren’t coming. No worries, your date will be out shortly,” he waggled his eyebrows teasingly and she was suddenly in desperate need of a drink. Of all things she had to deal with, an impending massacre for instance, the last thing she really felt like doing was receiving the withering looks of a certain Laurel Lance when she saw her somewhat-boyfriend flirting with a blonde at the bar.

“Come on Cissy,” Tommy said, gesturing towards the bartender, “You’re not mad at me, are you?”

She bristled a bit at the nickname but couldn’t stop the small smile on her lips. If there was anything that Tommy Merlyn was, he was most certainly charming. A bit of stress chipped away at the smile he was giving her.

“I’m not mad at you, Mr. Merlyn,” she said with a smirk, watching Tommy fluster under the name.

“I’m sorry Ms. Smoak,” he responded in a somber tone, pulling and straightening his shirt. He turned towards her with a hand outstretched, “I don’t believe we’ve been properly introduced. I’m Thomas Merlyn. You can call me Tommy.”

She took the handshake, trying to school her look into the faux-professional that the man in front of her was pulling off so well, “Pleasure to meet you, Tommy. I’m Felicity Smoak. You may _not_ call me Cissy.”

He pouted for a second before a tan hand appeared on his shoulder. A rather ravishing looking woman was gazing lustily at him and threateningly at her. Felicity pulled down her skirt a little at the unexpected glare.

“Get the lady a drink!” he said to the bartender and pointed at her before hopping off of the barstool and being pulled by the, if Felicity had to guess, lingerie model onto the grass dance floor. “See you later, Felicity!” she heard his voice fade out before returning all his attention onto the seductress in front of him.

She rolled her eyes and looked back towards the bartender, who stood expectedly.

“Oh! Um, just a um… Just a martini, I guess.”

 

* * *

 

 

She didn’t understand why a martini was always her first choice when it came to drinks, she thought, taking a grimacing sip and getting a mini paper umbrella in her nose. She hated gin. She really needed to retrain herself to say “appletini” instead.

She pulled the paper umbrella out of the drink and bit the olive off of it and looked around for a trash can to throw the thing in.

It was still pretty early, you know, if you were going off of billionaire-party-time. It had barely passed 10:30 and she was only a few sips into her drink, trying to stay sharp. Oliver Queen had yet to make an appearance to his own party. There were a few faces she vaguely remembered but she refrained from trying to strike up a conversation.

She couldn’t be completely sure if she had met these people already or if that was in the other, for lack of a better word, timeline.

A few people had already been thrown into the pool as she watched from the sidelines. There were a few police officers who seemed to be enjoying the energy of the whole event, and there was Detective Lance, who stood around looking as out of place as she felt, in-between a horde of writhing twenty-somethings.

Poor guy.

The music suddenly cut off and the attention of those writhing dancers went right to the center of the crowd. Felicity took a few steps forward, suddenly cursing herself for not wearing her heels as she stood on her tiptoes to see what all the attention was about.

It was all fixed, however, when Oliver stood on a table wearing a demin shirt with an inmate tag sewn into the pocket and raised a drink to the screams of the audience around him.

"Hi everybody,” he started, “I'm very touched that you came to celebrate with me before I am... Sent up the river.” The crowd laughed in a drunken haze around her. She shifted slightly. The façade of playboy Oliver had always made her feel slightly off.

“Closest neighbors are six miles away so don't worry about the noise. On second thought - let's wake those losers up!" He took a swig of something that looked like alcohol, but she doubted he would be so careless. The screams of the answering crowd made her wince. Yes, she was sure there would be a few irate people in the neighboring states.

Oliver Queen knew how to fake in front of a crowd, a talent in acting that probably would’ve landed him in a few movies if he were to go to an audition. His cocky smile and tipsy posture changed just a half second before he jumped off of the table, giving way to the very determined and sober man beneath.  

She couldn’t help herself. She pushed her way through the throngs of people like a woman posessed and somehow managed to get herself in his line of sight before he vanished into the mansion.

“Miss Smoak! I see you received my invitation!” his voice was carefree as he immediately transitioned from the man-on-a-mission into the throwing-a-party-because-I’m-in-trouble former-castaway. She would’ve been fooled if she hadn’t known any better.

“Oliver!” she said, taking a few steps forward and bringing him into an embrace. He stiffened under her arms but she pretended not to notice. She wasn’t the only one who could play drunk. “Thank you so much for inviting me! I never get out anymore.”

He pulled away from her hug, looking perturbed at the unexpected contact. Now that she was closer to his face she could see the distinct lack of a flush on his neck. His drunk-tell.

“I hope you enjoy the party,” he said with a smile, “Now, if you’ll excuse me.” He pushed past her quickly, stepping inside the sliding glass door and into the indoor-porch of the mansion. He didn’t even look back at her.

If she had been drunk, then maybe it wouldn’t have bothered her. But now? Now she felt a flush of feeling affronted from the quick dismissal that quickly melted into confusion.

He _was_ planning on being seen, wasn’t he? Why was he disappearing from the party so early? She noticed Detective Lance’s narrowing eyes from his vantage point. This would only pique the PD’s suspicion. Why was he leaving?

Felicity pondered it for two songs, swaying with the beat so as not to look so out of place. She felt uncertain, which wasn’t exactly a new feeling over the past several days, but still. Had something changed? Had Diggle decided not to join the vigilante’s efforts?

The doubts were too strong as she placed her barely-touched and probably room temperature martini onto a passing waiter’s plate and entered the mansion. Her ears felt stuffed with cotton for a few seconds as her ears adjusted to being away from the pounding music. She had to squint her eyes at being in a suddenly well-lit room again.

Felicity Smoak was just not a party person.

She slowly made her way to the main entrance, her senses readjusting. Working as Oliver Queen’s personal secretary had meant that she spent a lot of time in the mansion. And she had spent something like eight hours learning the layout in case of emergencies.

_“What the heck, Oliver? How many hallways does this house have?” Felicity whined, sitting on a bench stubbornly and pulling her feet out of her shoes to rub them. He had told her to wear comfortable shoes. Apparently, her sensible kitten heels were not comfortable after five and a half hours of learning every nook and cranny in the mansion._

_“You have to know how to get out of here in case of an emergency,” Oliver reiterated to her for the fifteenth time. He reached behind a bookcase and pulled out a revolver. Felicity squeaked in response to seeing it._

_“Why is there a_ gun _in your bookcases, Oliver?” she asked. “What is this? The National Guard’s armory of Starling City?”_

_“There are sixteen guns hidden in the hallways of the mansion,” he responded, ignoring her sarcasm, “and quite a few crowbars, bats, and other hard things to swing into an intruder’s head.”_

_“Why hasn’t your mother just invested into a_ security system _,” she muttered. He sighed back at her._

_“I’m the one who planted the weapons,” he said and rolled his eyes. “This house contains all the things you need to protect yourself should anything happen. And you need to be aware of them. Come on, I’ll show you how my room is set up.”_

_She groaned in response, “Oh my God you booby trapped your bedroom?”_

_He gave her a withering look, “One gun and a set of golfball clubs.”_

She dipped down a hallway, just to see if the arsenal had been set up yet. Pushing aside a small vase on a table, she scanned the furniture for a sign of a hidden drawer. She ran her hand along the wood and found nothing. Apparently Oliver hadn’t armed the mansion yet.

“I wonder why he did,” she murmured, before turning and resuming her walk to the main entrance.

She reached the open area, which was occupied by a few girls who were giggling and readjusting their shoes. Felicity stood at the outskirts of the tiny group, looking at the large clock in the sitting room.

It was around eleven, still pretty early. But the all-nighters and tossing and turning were making just crawling into bed sound _really_ nice right now. She made a move to signal to the chauffeur to pull her car out front when someone else came into the room.

She spared him a quick glance before double-taking.

“John?” she asked before she could even help herself. Diggle paused mid-step, cocking an eyebrow at her. Oh, dammit, he hadn’t even met her yet.

“Oh um, never mind, I thought you were someone else,” she managed to stutter. Her body felt too stiff. She tried to lean against the wall to look a little more intoxicated. He gave her a small smile and nod and then jetted past her and out the doors.

Boy, he looked like he was in a hurry, she thought. He must’ve been sent on Oliver’s mission.

Her heart beat faster at the thought of him leaving. No Bluetooth headset in his ear. No cameras scoping out the area so she could give him a more precise idea of the group he was facing. Her hands shook in worry. She took a deep breath, trying to calm her nerves.

Diggle had made it out fine the first time, she reiterated to herself. Nothing bad had happened. But a nagging voice in the back of her head filled her with doubt.

This wasn’t the first time. What if something had changed?

Feeling sick and like the few sips of martini were going to make her vomit all over the very expensive rug she was standing on, she hurried herself up the staircase, looking for the more private guest bathrooms.

She retched a couple times but managed to keep everything down. The first bathroom she came across was locked, the second had strange moaning sounds coming from it and she decided that she didn’t want to test the handle.

Her favorite bathroom in the Queen mansion was the one just a couple doors down from Oliver’s room. Being a mainly male domain, it had her favorite spicy-scented soap that he always smelled like when he worked up a sweat in the Foundry.

She would’ve blushed in embarrassment of her crush if she didn’t immediately hurl her not-so-famous spaghetti into the toilet.

She winced, glad she’d decided on having her hair pulled back from her face when she’d gotten ready earlier.

“Oh my God,” she moaned, after her stomach stopped rebelling against her. She flushed the toilet and rested her head against the wall, holding her arm over her eyes. At least the small rug was plushy underneath her legs.

Diggle would be fine. Diggle would be fine. Diggle was still going to marry Lyla. He was going to have a baby. He was most certainly _not_ going to die in a simple arms deal bust. He did that kind of thing in his sleep.

She spit into the toilet, slowly standing up. The Queen mansion was well stocked, probably for Oliver’s notorious one-night-stands, and she was more than a little relieved to find a pre-packaged toothbrush underneath the sink. She carefully brushed her teeth, trying not to gag when scrubbing her tongue. She looked at the green soap bar in the elegant porcelain dish next to the fluffy white hand towels.

Waves of nostalgia washed over her before she turned her face back at the mirror. Her face was red and splotchy, her mascara running down her cheeks and her lipstick completely gone. She lathered the soap in her hands.

The smell made her smile as she wiped her makeup clean. It smelled like him. It smelled like home.

It was weird being in the same place but in a different time. Home was in Starling City, but it was a place where Roy cracked jokes to her gasping laughter, where Diggle respectfully held his own laughter at her pitiful attempts at sparring, where Oliver looked at her with warmth.

Of all the things she missed most, she thought, rubbing her face dry on the delightfully soft towels, was the look he gave her when she did a job well done. Or when she rambled and stumbled on her words. Or, really, any of the looks he gave her. The ones where he _knew_ her.

She looked at herself in the mirror and readjusted her dress. Deeming herself somewhat decent, she opened the door and looked towards Oliver’s room out of habit.

A man darted inside with what looked exactly like a gun.

Her heart literally skipped a beat in her chest before it took off racing. She didn’t even think of the consequences or doubt herself. This was fight or flight.

And she was going to fight.

“Oliver!” she yelled, running through the threshold of the room. The two men had fallen down and were in the process of standing back up. A broken lamp was shattered next to them. The assassin reacted quicker to her presence than Oliver did and rose his gun to point at her.

She shrieked in fear but Oliver tackled the man’s ankles. A gunshot rang out and she covered her ears as her eardrums screamed in pain. A shrill ringing muffled the rest of the sounds of the room.

Oliver and his would-be killer grappled on the ground for a few seconds.

_“One gun and a set of golf ball clubs.”_

She darted around the two of them and the now broken coffee table. The gun. Her brain raced, trying to recall where the gun had been. She nearly ripped the doors of his closet open, looking for the firearm that he had hidden, just for situations like these.

There was no gun. She looked around frantically as the noises of the scrap went on in the background. Someone landed a punch and Oliver grunted in pain. Her eyes felt like they were vibrating. Her whole body trembled in adrenaline and fear.

She nearly resigned herself to needing to tackle the assassin herself when she turned around and spotted the red leather bag of golf clubs sitting innocently by the window.

She rushed over to the bag so fast it tipped over but managed to hold the 4-iron in her shaking hands and tried to make sense of the fight happening on the other side of the room.

The assassin held Oliver in a chokehold, and he gurgled and gripped tightly on the killer’s arm. Tightening her grip on the metal, she ran forward and swung as hard as she could for the back of the waiter’s knees.

The hit seemed to throw him off guard and loosen his grip, because Oliver jerked free. He fell to the ground, coughing and holding his throat. She dropped the club from her hands, taking a few steps forward.

“Oliver, are you okay?” she said, panicked. He looked at her, his blue eyes watering. He took a few ragged breaths before she saw his vision focus over her shoulder.

“Felicity, look out!” he yelled, just as she looked over her shoulder to see the assassin with the gun in his hand pointed straight at her.

Two gunshots cracked in the small room and she screamed, holding her hands in front of her face. Her eardrums felt like they would burst from the vibrations. She held her breath, waiting.

She cracked an eye open to see their attacker on the ground, his blood running out and onto the carpeting. Behind him was Detective Lance, still posed as though ready to shoot.

“How did you know we were in trouble?” Oliver asked. She could only pick out the lower tones of his voice. She stared at the dead man in front of her.

“Your ankle bracelet,” she heard Quentin respond. She looked at Oliver’s ankle. The tracking device was smashed to smithereens.

She looked back at the body.

She puked.

 

* * *

 

 

“Your name?” Quentin Lance asked her. She was wrapped in a blanket that Oliver had taken from his bed. For shock, he’d told the officers. The smell was familiar, and it would’ve been comforting if the pounding headache and aching eardrums hadn’t made her feel completely miserable.

Her, Detective Lance, Oliver, Moira, Thea, and seven other officers stood in the hallway outside of the room. The Queen brood flocked around Oliver who was looking appropriately scared for the event, though she noticed he kept sending questioning glances in her direction.

Thea’s glances were a touch more venomous.

“Felicity Smoak,” she said back. Her hearing was coming back to normal, although she was going to take several aspirin and go to the walk-in clinic tomorrow to make sure her ears weren’t irreversibly damaged. They sure felt damaged.

It was weird interacting with Lance this way. This wasn’t how they had originally met, and her stomach did all sorts of somersaults at the idea that she was changing the timeline and things wouldn’t be happening like they were supposed to.

“What’s your relationship with Oliver Queen?” Quentin’s tone was a little judgey, and she felt herself begin to blush.

“He’s a um, friend,” she responded, before shaking her head. “I mean, not really my friend. More like acquaintance. Well not even that, he’s like, my boss.” That made it sound worse, she realized as Lance began to scribble on his notepad. “I mean, not my boss-boss. I don’t even think he works at Queen Consolidated. He doesn’t like, sign my paychecks or anything.” She let out a nervous laugh.

Quentin cocked an eyebrow at her rambling but didn’t say anything. She looked down at the ground in shamed silence.

“What were you doing in Mr. Queen’s bedroom?”

“I came out of the bathroom,” she pointed down the hall, “and when I came out, I saw a man with a gun go into his room.”

He cocked his eyebrow again, not seeming to buy her story, but wrote it down anyway. “What did you witness when you came into Mr. Queen’s bedroom?”

“Him and the attacker were fighting.”

“What did you do when you saw them?”

“I uh, grabbed a golf club and hit the guy with it in the back of the legs.”

Quentin let out a sigh and said something that sounded a lot like “Holy shit” before nodding.

“Alright Ms. Smoak, you’re free to go. Take this card, it directs to Health and Human services. They’ll help you find counselling if you need it. Have a good rest of the evening.” With that, he patted her lightly on the shoulder and walked over to a fellow officer, probably to compare notes.

She shrugged off the blanket, the air cool against her bare arms. She shuddered.

“Felicity, how are you doing?”

She jumped at the voice, looking back at the man behind her. Oliver. His blue eyes were searching her face for something. Before she could answer, he pulled her into a loose hug. His hand patted her back a few times and she nearly melted into a puddle right then.

She sniffled in spite of herself and when he released the hug she rubbed her eyes. She let out a shuddering sigh.

“I’ve been better, if you’d believe it.” When she pulled her hands away from her eyes, he was smiling ruefully back at her.

“I can believe that,” he was with a small chuckle. He rubbed the side of his neck and she could see the red marks left from the chokehold, “Thank you, for saving me back there.”

“I think you could’ve handled yourself pretty well,” she said with a small smile.

The response seemed to give him pause and when he opened his mouth to respond, she interrupted him with an unexpected yawn.

“I should probably head home,” she murmured, “I have work early tomorrow.” Her eyelids and shoulders drooped at just the suggestion of her impending work day.

“No you don’t,” he said in response, placing his hands on her shoulders. She just barely kept herself from leaning forward and burying her face into his chest, “I’ll take care of it. Take a three day weekend. For saving my life.”

 

* * *

 

 

She knew she should’ve argued a bit just for the sake of her pride, but her body and brain were too exhausted. She was dead on her feet when she slid into the back seat of one of the Queen’s limousines.

“We’ll have your car in your driveway before you even wake up,” Oliver had told her with that brilliant smile, “Let me have someone drive you home.”

She fell asleep before the car even drove out of the driveway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Constructive criticism is always welcome! Follow me on tumblr at angelaandmels.tumblr.com for updates and to send me things (and by things I mean asks).
> 
> Please comment! I love to know how people are feeling about my writing, especially this fic in particular.


	5. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Royal Flush Gang robs banks all over Starling City.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Wow, it's been a while, hasn't it? I'm so sorry!
> 
> It's been a combination of a bunch of things - but the main thing is that school is taking up way more of my time than I expected. All the stress and extra reading I have to do gave me some intense writers block.
> 
> So even though the chapter is like two weeks late, I hope you enjoy it! It's another (in comparison) longer chapter. I'm thinking maybe if I keep the new chapters to 3k words, they'll be easier to write.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy it, because it was a tough chapter to write!

A ping woke Felicity up barely a few hours later, rousing her into consciousness long enough to grab her phone, unlock it, see that it was a mass-sent corporate email, place the phone, face-down, on her sheets, and slowly edge it off the bed until it fell onto the carpeted floor with a muffled thump.

She scrunched her eyes shut and snuggled further into her pillows, hoping to fall back asleep before the headache in the recesses of her brain and the cottonmouth got too bad, but it was too late.

She hadn’t had very much alcohol at the party, but all the vomiting had definitely dehydrated her enough to give her a killer hangover. This was definitely comparable to the rager freshman year when she learned how much she liked rum and cokes.

Her head throbbed as she stumbled out of her bedroom in a very drowsy manner. Well, she tried to stumble out of the room, but ended up walking straight into her closed bedroom door. After a few confused seconds, she managed to find the handle, open it, and walk into her kitchen.

The sun was still below the down, giving her a clue about how early it was. The green LED clock on the microwave said it was just barely past three in the morning.

She would’ve groaned if she hadn’t been doing that anyway.

A pair of Aleve and three straight glasses of water, her stomach sloshed with the excess liquid as she dragged herself back to the bedroom – which was difficult, with her very comfy-looking couch only a few feet away – and collapsed back on the bed.

“Employees of Queen Consolidated,

I will be travelling to visit our subsidiaries in Melbourne, Australia indefinitely. Please give all concerns or important information to my secretary, who will forward it to me or to the person who can fulfill the task needed.

I thank you for all your hard work,

Walter Steele, CEO”

Felicity munched on a bowl of Chex, her phone in one hand and a spoon in the other. She remembered the sudden trip to Melbourne from the first time, but it still made her confused.

The first time, she’d thought that perhaps she’d missed a clue in the Tempest report and that there’d been a path leading to Australia.

No, she thought, fishing a rather crafty crosshatched corn-square from the bowl and bringing it to her mouth. She had made sure there was no stone left unturned this time around. Tempest only led to the Glades. There was nothing to find in Melbourne.

She set the spoon and phone on the table, bringing the bowl up to her lips to drink the rest of the milk inside. Maybe Mr. Steele had just needed to run an emergency trip for the reasons he’d stated in the email. Some Australian bank angry about stock or something. Maybe that was all there was to it.

She rinsed the bowl in the sink and placed it in the dishwasher. It was weird, all that was going on, being in the future. It was like being in a book club and being a chapter ahead.

Well, it was more like being in a classroom and _The Great Gatsby_ being assigned, only you’ve already seen the movie with your eccentric Aunt Daniella who battered in the meaning of the distant green light and the betrayal into your thirteen year old brain before you even knew what a _flapper_ was. And now she was sitting in the back of the classroom, watching her classmates discuss whether Daisy would leave her husband or not.

Except this wasn’t Daisy’s fictional hit-and-run. This was the attempted genocide of the Glades. And Mr. Steele was going off to oversee accounts with kangaroos and Oliver was still picking and choosing names from a battered journal with no real idea of the central theme behind it all.

Just thinking about it made her headache come back.

She leaned forward, rubbing her temples for a few minutes of quiet until her phone buzzed.

\--

From: Tommy

CNRI Benefit Gala next Saturday! Come support the cause!

\--

“How did he even get my number?” she said, incredulous as she turned her phone over like she’d find a bug on the back of it, “And how did he get into my contact list?”

Felicity enjoyed her three day weekend off from work the best she could with the feeling of impending doom hanging over her. She took a bath, went to the walk-in clinic to see her very confused general practitioner (“The ringing should go away within another twenty-four hours but the eardrum looks fairly undamaged. Why were you shooting guns without proper ear protection?”), and stress-cried into a few pints of mint chip before deciding to mix it up with some orange sherbet.

Her eyes struggled to stay open as she watched a re-run of some sitcom (really it was a new episode, but she’d seen it before) and fell into bed at barely eight-thirty every night.

She went to work for the next week, which was same old, same old. Her boss was incompetent but treated her like an elementary schooler, the girls clambered around Jeremy who exaggerated the Queen prison-party (which was a feat in itself, seeing as the party had already been beyond her imagination. Maybe she missed the orgy full of women painted like reptiles?) and every day after her shift she gave a half-hearted effort to run a mile.

Her best time was 11:46. At least she was well rested.

Trying to pull up ninety pounds in a deadlift, she failed out of the lift halfway through, cursing. It was like starting over from the very beginning. 2012 Felicity hadn’t lifted a weight since… Well, maybe since ever.

She looked in the mirror, gave herself a once-over, and gave a sad whimper at the sight of her butt.

Her much-smaller-than-two-years-in-the-future butt.

She needed to up her squats.

And then, with no extra fanfare, no surprise visits, heck, not even a lot of crime in the city despite her scanning and tracking, the weekend came back around.

Her weekends tended to always start the same, now and in 2014. The weatherman boasted about the low-70s and sunny skies as though it had been from his own doing, and the TV went on in the background as Felicity laid on her couch, looking at the ceiling and enjoying her now non-ringing hearing and the relative peace.

“Breaking news!” the commercials ended suddenly and the screen changed from the view of a car dealership to a flushed, brunette news reporter standing in front of a bank.

“This is Emily Simmons with Channel 8 News! Starling City Trust here in downtown Starling City has been robbed. Witnesses report four armed figures wearing hockey masks stealing an estimated $550,000. During the robbery, an off-duty police officer was shot and is currently in a coma at Starling General. More details expected within the next half hour.”

Felicity swung her leg until she was sitting on the edge of her couch. This was the next step. She remembered this. Her heart pounded in her chest.

She looked down at her pajamas and patted her hips, looking for her phone. Oh God, what if he was trying to contact her now? Would he find someone else if his call went to voicemail? She tore through the couch before finding her little phone, turning the ringer as high as it would go and watching the TV screen.

An off-duty police officer shot in the bank. In a coma. Unsure if he would survive.

A lead weight rested inside her. Did he survive? She couldn’t remember off-hand. Did he live to go back on the force? Had he been married? Did he have kids?

Why didn’t she remember? Surely she must’ve been paying some sort of attention to these events the first time around? Had she really been so out-of-touch? Had she really cared so little?

Her stomach soured. She turned the television off, and her living room silenced.

She laid back on her couch, still clutching her cell phone. All she could really do was wait.

Something startled her awake and she jumped, flailing a bit before settling down. A shrill ring came from the kitchen. Picking her cell phone up from the floor, she stumbled onto the tile floors, picking the phone up during the last ring.

“Hello?” she asked. Hardly anyone ever called her home phone.

“Miss Smoak? It’s Oliver.”

She nearly dropped the cell phone in her hand, and during her attempt to secure it in her hand, she ended up dropping the receiver for her home phone. It landed on the floor with a loud smack.

“Oh my God!” she scolded herself, tripping over her own feet to get the receiver back up to her ear.

“Felicity? Is everything okay?”

“Yes! Yes! I’m sorry! I’m such a clutz. I wasn’t expecting you to call me on this phone and then it was surprising when you did!” She could slap herself. “I mean, not that I was expecting you to call at all! Ha, why would you call me? That would just be ridiculous. Unless you need help with you laptop again. Although I’m sure you’re much more careful after what happened the-“

“Felicity,” Oliver’s voice was stern but polite on the other end, “Are you busy right now?”

She looked around the room, checking the clock. It was still early in the afternoon. Not that she had any real plans anyway, she thought, rolling her eyes to herself.

“Felicity?”

She jumped, “Oh, no. No, I’m not busy. Why?”

Of course, she already knew why.

“Can you meet me in board room fifteen at Queen Consolidated in half an hour?”

“Yes,” she said, already heading towards the door before realizing she was still wearing her pajamas and veering back towards her bedroom, “I’ll see you there.”

* * *

 

“I should add personal internet researcher for Oliver Queen to my job title,” she’d meant to say it teasingly, but the blank expression on Oliver’s face made her doubt her word choice. She readjusted her glasses. “Happily, I mean.”

Oliver didn’t linger on her faux pas. “His name is Derek Reston. We were close before I went away and... I want to get back in touch.”

“I guess you didn't have Facebook on that island,” she said, typing the name into her laptop. Board room fifteen was more for fun, employee-bonding activities. No big table in the middle, no projection screen, but a large window and a couple of chairs and couches. It would’ve been relaxing and casual – probably why Oliver picked it in the first place – if she wasn’t hyperaware of the real reason she was digging for information.

Her hands were shaking just enough to make her miss a key and she deleted and rewrote another error.

“Nope - not even a Myspace account. It was a very dark time.” Diggle’s teasing voice came from the other side of the room, and she looked up to give him a quick smile. He hadn’t seemed to have recognized her when she walked into the room, like she’d been afraid of. He’d shaken her hand and introduced himself just like the first time. Perhaps wearing glasses _was_ an acceptable disguise for her secret identity.

That being said, it was both relaxing and endlessly nerve wracking to be in the same room with the two of them, doing her detective work like the old – or the future? – days.

The screen finished loading.

“Well,” she started, “there's not much here that's recent. No credit activity... No utility bills…” the address for the Queen Consolidated Steel Factory came up as she scrolled down the page, “I guess you guys must've met at the factory.”

Oliver tensed up, the information new to him. She remembered this and bit her lip to hold back a smile – had he ever fooled anyone with these mediocre acting skills?

Oliver leaned forward, bringing her thoughts back to the conversation, "Wait… What... What factory?"

Felicity looked back at the screen, reading the information off, “The Queen Steel Factory. Derek Reston worked there for 15 years until it shut down in '07.”

“Derek Reston worked for my father?"

She could’ve sworn she heard Diggle make a small sigh at the question.

“You weren't really close friends, huh?” Felicity teased, and Oliver’s eyes hardened at the comment. She swallowed and cleared her throat, looking back down at the company records.

She didn’t remember Oliver looking at her like that the first time they’d had this conversation. Like the Arrow. Heck, the first time he had used such a look like that on her was when she’d tried to lock him in the Foundry to keep him from attacking some evil-doing single dad.

Vague acquaintance Oliver Queen of 2012 was never like this to her.

The muscles in her arms tensed and she had to make a conscious effort to keep her shoulders from raising in a nervous shrug. He saved the hard looks and the cold glares for people he put arrows in. She swallowed a lump in her throat, trying to get her voice to work again.

“Looks like Derek was the factory foreman until your dad outsourced production to China. About fifteen hundred employees got laid off.” She looked back down at the screen after tearing her eyes away from their staring contest. The tension in the room relaxed – but just barely.

“Looks like the finance guys even found a loophole in the union contracts so they didn't even have to pay severance packages or pensions. A lot of people lost their homes - including your friend.”

Peering from underneath her eyelashes, she saw Oliver share a look with Diggle before she made herself refocus on the information in front of her. She made the conscious decision not to chew on her lip or tap her foot – her two more obvious tells.

“Well, thank you for the information Felicity. I don’t know what I would do without you.” Oliver stood up and Felicity placed her laptop on the side table to stand up with him.

“It’s not problem,” she tried to say it cheerfully but her voice shook on the last syllable. She wiped her sweaty hands on the front of her skirt.

“Mr. Diggle,” Oliver said, turning away from her and giving her a reprieve from the intense looks and the questions. Helping out Oliver Queen had never been this nerve wracking. A little peculiar, sure. Their conversations had kept her awake at night as she tried to grapple with conflicting information and theories.

This was a whole new ballgame. Knowing the full picture and pretending she didn’t was wearing down any sort of energy she’d had stored away.

She should’ve taken some acting classes at MIT.

“…-privately. Thank you.” Oliver finished just as she tuned back in to the conversation.

“Yes, sir. I’ll be waiting in the car, Mr. Queen,” Diggle responded, before leaving the room.

Felicity tried not to let her horror show as the only other person left the room and she found herself alone with Oliver for the first time since she’d fixed his laptop in the IT Department a few weeks ago.

Well that wasn’t completely correct, she thought to herself, turning back to face the billionaire vigilante in front of her and hoping that her face wasn’t betraying the fact that her heart was beating so fast she was hoping she’d have another fainting, or maybe even vomiting, episode. The last time they’d been alone, there was a dead body bleeding out in front of them.

“Felicity, how are you feeling?” Oliver said, and his concerning tone seemed to be genuine. He took a step forward (and by the grace of God she managed not to stumble backward like some sort of trapped animal) and placed a hand on her shoulder. “I hadn’t heard from you since the party.”

“Oh. You know… I… I… I…” she stuttered and tried to keep herself focused.

_“Don’t open your eyes so wide. Don’t look around like you’re looking for an escape. Relax your jaw,” Sara mimicked a scared expression and then followed her own instructions step-by-step. “Your heart rate will slow when you make the steps towards relaxing your features. When your heart slows down, you’ll be able to think better.”_

_“What if I want to look scared?” Felicity asked, looking up from her notepad after she’d scribbled a couple notes down. Sara rolled her eyes and ripped it away from her hands. “Hey!”_

_“You’re taking notes? Felicity, this isn’t a classroom. These are skills you need to practice. What are you going to do with these?” she held up the notepad, “Write down a couple practice questions? Cram for the final?”_

_“It’s how I learn!” Felicity objected, reaching out to try and grab back the little notebook, but Sara moved it out of her reach with a quick step._

_Sara sighed, but her serious expression was gone, replaced with a smile. She reached out and pinched Felicity’s cheek. “You’re cute.”_

_If anyone else had done it to her, she would’ve slapped their hand away, gotten on her computer, and destroyed their credit. But Sara wasn’t anyone else. So Felicity smiled instead, shaking her face loose from the grip._

“I think I’m okay,” Felicity finally managed to spit out. Right. She had to get her terrified expression under control.

Oliver looked unconvinced, but removed his hand. “I just think it was so lucky that you were there to find us. I would’ve been a goner if you hadn’t gone so far down the hallway and close to my room.”

Felicity shook her head, “I guess you’ll just have to thank the bartender making such strong drinks.”

He smiled at her and tilted his head in just the right way that it was probably meant to put her at ease, but instead it set off all sorts of alarms in her head. “Yeah. It’s amazing that you were drunk enough to get sick, but still able to run and hit that guy with a golf club.”

Her heart skipped a beat. She paused and licked her lips, unsure of what to say next. He kept up the staring contest despite her obvious signs of discomfort. Oliver wasn’t the type to miss such physical cues – he had to be doing it on purpose.

He was trying to figure her out, she realized. Her breath caught in her throat. Her mind, her conscious, wanted to spill everything. Tell him exactly what was happening. Anything to get the weight and responsibility off of her shoulders.

“What are you implying?” she heard herself ask, and the question seemed to take Oliver by surprise. He raised his eyebrows but pressed his lips together in a tight line.

“Here,” she said, walking around him in a sudden burst of anxious energy. She picked up his suit jacket from the chair he’d been sitting in and held it out to him with trembling hands, “You wouldn’t want to forget this.”

He smiled the phony smile at her and put the jacket on, “Thank you again, Ms. Smoak. Your help is invaluable.”

She smiled back, “No problem. You can call any time.”

She stayed by the window as Oliver nodded his goodbye before he left. Only when the door was closed and she counted to twenty did she exhale the breath she’d been holding.

Oliver was off to his mission to stop the Royal Flush Gang.

With a bug she’d planted in his jacket pocket. 

* * *

 

Felicity rushed home, taking bizarre side roads and maybe an illegal U-Turn or two to get there as quickly as possible. She ran up the stairs two at a time halfway until she thought she might keel over from the pure exertion. Taking the last fourth of the stairs on all-fours, she huffed her way to the door, unlocking it and making a pathetic half-jog to her bedroom.

She really needed to use the stairclimber more often.

“That mic better work,” she murmured to herself. It had just been a quaint little thing, meant for kids who wanted to play spies, that she’d bought from Amazon and tweaked on. She wasn’t much of a sound engineer.

Okay, maybe one of the things she missed the most was the endless disposable income working for a billionaire – and being the VP of a billion dollar company – had given her.

Messing with the radio frequencies on her computer, turning the volume all the way up and trying to cancel out the ambient noise (and when that failed, instead pressing the headphones even tighter against her ears and closing her eyes, trying to focus on the tones she could hear and try to decipher them into words.

There was a lot of ambient noise – it sounded like music and a crowd. A bar, maybe? She bit her lower lips, kicking herself mentally for not installing a GPS. The static started to fade just a bit as her adjustments kicked into effect.

“When people are hurt and people are in trouble, they tend to make the wrong choices,” Oliver’s voice suddenly came through loud and clear, making her jump in her chair. An awkward silence seemed to come over the airwaves, and Felicity typed a few adjustments into the computer. Were they really not talking or was the mic not sensitive enough?

 “All I can offer you is an apology and a job,” Oliver spoke again, “Queen Consolidated has subsidiaries all over the country. I make one phone call and you start next week. So, what do you say?”

Something clicked in her head. “Oh my God he’s talking to Derek Reston,” she said in shock. What the Hell was he doing? Didn’t he realize Reston was dangerous? And probably armed? She really doubted Oliver was carrying his bow with him underneath his several thousand dollar suit.

“How about I still have some pride left? I don’t need charity from the son of the man who screwed me over,” a rough voice responded. There was a shuffling over the mic, but it didn’t sound like it was due to a fight. More like they were standing up.

A loud scraping noise came over the headphones and made her jerk, holding the earpieces half an inch from her ear.

Oh her doctor probably wouldn’t be very happy to see any more damage done to her eardrums.

“Here’s my card,” Oliver’s voice came back over the airwaves, “Call me if you change my mind or you want to get into contact.”

With that, it sounded like he walked out of the bar.

It was a quiet fifteen minutes as Felicity swiveled gently in her chair. She was pretty sure she’d heard a car door close, and if she listened really closely, she could swear she heard a radio playing in the background.

“Why didn’t I put a GPS in?” she grumbled on and off until the background music stopped and the car door shut again. A couple beeps and the sound of a heavy lock unlatching.

“I thought you were gonna give the man a second chance?” she heard faintly. Diggle. Oliver must’ve driven to the Foundry.

“I like to cover all my bases.”

“You planted a bug on him?”

Felicity raised her eyebrows. Oliver had planted a bug on Reston?

“Great minds think alike,” she said softly, with a smile. Maybe Oliver really had rubbed off on her during their years together. At least he hadn’t accidently planted the wrong bug. That would’ve been, at best, very awkward.

Oliver gave a couple small instructions and then the two men were silent. She could hear the occasional grunt from one of them as they listened to their own bug.

“Stupid cheap thing,” she hissed, messing with the sound settings on her computer and forcing the earbuds deeper into her ear canal, trying to get the gist of what the Flush’s conversation was about.

She could just barely make out a very staticy syllable every now and then, but mostly it was just the sound of the Foundry and the occasional tapping of fingers against the table.

She agitatedly brought the volume all the way to the top, but it only made the ambient static louder.

“Now what?” Diggle’s voice boomed over the earbuds and she yelped and jumped in surprise, nearly knocking the monitor on the desk straight to the floor. She grimaced, nearly jamming her finger trying to turn down the volume.

Now it was too low. She scowled.

“-them down,” Oliver’s firm voice responded in the trailing end of his sentence.

The shuffling noise was back, indicating that Oliver was walking around the room. She heard him sigh wearily, “I have to get ready for the Gala at CNRI. Too many people are expecting me to be there. It’d be more than a little suspicious for me not to show up.”

Diggle said something in response but his words were overtaken by the noise of fabric rubbing against the microphone before a loud and sudden CLACK came over the earphones. Felicity tensed, her fingers frozen above the keyboard.

“What the Hell is that?” Diggle asked, and with a sickening realization, she realized that the mic must’ve fallen out when Oliver took off his jacket.

“No. No no no no,” she panicked, typing rapidly. She heard the device get picked up and then the voice of Oliver Queen came, crystal clear over the frequency.

“I think it’s a bug.”

Her finger slammed on the enter button, immediately severing the connection. Her heart pounded in her chest as her fingers flurried over the keyboard, scrubbing any remaining link from the bug to her computer.

She went over the tracks four times before deciding that no one would ever find out where the signal was being received.

Well, she’d be able to find it – but they didn’t have her on their side, did they?

Of course, now she was blind _and_ deaf when it came down to figuring out how to help her boys. She angrily pushed her keyboard in and stood up, pacing around the room. Surely she had to remember this. It had been big news! A huge bank heist! The terrorizing Royal Flush Gang defeated by the Starling City PD!

Of course, now she knew better, she thought, tilting her head back and looking at her ceiling. They must’ve been tipped off by Oliver.

No, that would’ve never happened. Oliver probably went in to fight himself.

Dropping back into her chair and rolling over to the computer screen, she typed a quick Goggle search.

“Banks in Starling City”

She opened another tab, looking up all police reports of the Royal Gang’s previous jobs.

If she were to make an educated guess, she’d have to assume that they wouldn’t rob the same bank twice.

Biting the nail on her thumb, she eliminated the banks one-by-one. They seemed to be targeting a fairly specific area, never going past 32nd street or Lanconne Ave. Presumably to give themselves ample time before police could get to the area.

Quentin would probably be at the Gala supporting his daughter, Felicity thought, scrolling down the webpage and scrutinizing every detail. His last thought would be about trying to catch the Gang. He probably had the night off.

One last person she had to worry about. She sighed and rested her head on one of her hands.

The two most likely banks would be Redwood National and Starling County National.

She let out another weary sigh as she read the information on both banks for the third time, switching back and forth between internet tabs. Neither of them had a defining feature that she could see making a team of robbers choose one over the other.

Still, she thought, clicking back on the Redwood National website and chewing her bottom lip, something about it seemed to trigger a memory. Maybe it had been the one that’d been robbed. Of course, it could’ve also invested in Queen Consolidated and she was mixing up the memories.

Still, it was the best idea she had. She looked out of her bedroom window. The sun hadn’t yet touched the horizon. She stretched her arms, cracked her fingers, and went to work.

Hacking into Redwood National was much harder than she had expected. She had to work doubly as hard to make sure her tracks were covered now that the signals were linked to her home computer. She didn’t have the automatic scrubbing program on this computer. Heck, in this timeline, she hadn’t even written it yet!

So she gave anxious glances towards her clock on her bedside table and to the window as the sun sank in a physical representation of how much time she was spending trying to access the main computer and security cameras of the bank.

This was the most annoying part of being two years in the past, she thought angrily to herself as she had to stop her advancements, yet again, in order to double back and make sure there wasn’t a path. Not having the spider’s web that she’d strung out over the years.

Heck, one of the first things Oliver had asked her to do when she joined the team was to wheedle her way into as many of the security cameras in Starling City as possible. It had taken her weeks. And a lot of coffee. Which he had always been happy to supply her with.

Was she sweating? She wiped a hand across her forehead. The sun had sunken completely below the horizon over an hour ago, the only light in the room was the glow of her monitor. Her eyes were already beginning to tire from the strain of lack-of-light, but she couldn’t pull herself away from the computer long enough to turn on her lamp.

She was almost there. She could screech in frustration as the last bits of resistance from the bank’s system popped up and she had to backtrack, scrubbing relentlessly.

No. She was not going to be arrested for hacking. She made a quick glance towards her calendar. Not for a few months, anyway.

Finally the feed from the cameras popped up on her screen. A man was out cold on the lobby floor, and two men were shoveling money from one of the vaults into pillow sheets. There was a van, running, in the alley behind the building.

“Dammit!” she yelled, slamming her hands on the table in frustration. Getting into the system had taken so long the Gang was already inside. Was she getting rusty? Were all the boring IT problems really wearing down her skills?

“Focus!” she said out loud, shaking her head and trying to unscramble her thoughts.

Where was Oliver?

Clicking around on the different cameras, she caught a figure moving stealthily though the hallways. That had to be him. She looked back at the men in the vault. They startled. They must’ve heard him.

“Shit shit shit,” she muttered, holding her thumb in to her lips and just barely remembered not to chew on the nail.

The resolution of the video was pretty bad, but she was seventy-percent sure the man leaving wasn’t Derek Reston. And she one hundred-percent sure that he was holding a machine gun.

They spotted each other and she clutched her chest. Oliver shot an arrow in half a second and she let out a strangled cry in surprise. The arrow missed, for whatever reason, and the man pulled the trigger, making the machine gun go off.

She watched in horror, unable to move. A sudden thought came to her and washed over her like a bucket of freezing cold water.

Tommy hadn’t died yet.

Oliver was still killing.

Would someone die tonight? The question made her numb, as she stared open-mouthed at the screen. What in the world was she going to do? What could she possibly do anyway? Did she have the right to change the past?

Out of the corner of her eye she noticed someone moving. The security guard. Whatever had happened to knock him out, he was now awake. And running into another room. Felicity’s eyes darted back and forth between the three men.

The guard had a gun.

And he was aiming it. The second man from the vault was running into the lobby.

All of it was happening so fast.

“No!” Felicity yelled, slamming her finger on the button on the keyboard. The alarm went off in the bank. A flash came from the gun, and all the men fell to the floor.

“No!” she screamed in anguish. She stood up from her seat, typing frantically and clicking on the cameras trying to get a better view.

Oliver got up first, then the security guard. He gave a quick once-over on the robbers, patting down their bodies before nodding at the guard and running out of the camera’s view.

Her shaking hands were slow to respond to her thoughts and her panic slowly faded and allowed her to think clearly. From what she could see, Oliver had made it out of the bank unnoticed.

And, she thought with a shuddering breath, unharmed.

Her shoulders relaxed and she slumped back down into her seat. She rubbed her cheeks, wiping away a few tear tracks. That was nerve wracking.

“You’re playing a dangerous game,” a voice came from behind her and she spun around quickly to see a red haired, long legged woman perched on her bed.

“H-How did you get in here?” Felicity choked out, looking at her locked window and her still-closed bedroom door.

“I’m not here to answer your questions, Felicity,” Amy said with a brief smile.

She swallowed, trying to remember how not to look afraid. Her adrenaline reserves were running low after the bank incident. And she really doubted that she’d be able to fight in some sort of hand-to-hand combat if it came to that.

“Why are you here then?” she finally said.

Amy stood up and it took everything Felicity had not to cower back in her chair.

“That man, Derek Reston,” Amy said, pointing to the monitor, “He was supposed to die tonight.”

“He didn’t?” Felicity squeaked, making a side glance back at the monitor. It looked like the police were making their arrests. Both figures were being handcuffed. No body bags in sight.

When she turned back to her bed, Amy was gone.

* * *

 

Oliver entered the Foundry and ran down the steps, throwing his bow carelessly on the stainless steel table of the room and roughly unzipping his jacket. Diggle turned in his computer chair, taking off his headset, an eyebrow raised.

“Why are you so agitated?” John asked, gesturing towards the bow on the table, “From what I’m hearing on the police scanner, the best possible outcome happened. Everyone caught, and everyone alive.”

“Something was wrong,” Oliver grumbled, walking to the other side of the room and picking up the now-crushed microphone transmitter in his hand.

“I can’t read your mind, Oliver. You’ll have to be more specific than that.”

Oliver rolled his eyes, holding up the bug, “This thing we found in my suit jacket pocket. I think someone knows that I’m the Arrow, and they planted the bug on me to see where I’d be going tonight.”

Diggle raised his eyebrows in alarm, taking three large steps to look at the tiny transmitter closer. He took it from Oliver’s hand, looking at it closely, “Who do you think could’ve done it?”

“I don’t know,” Oliver sighed, plopping heavily in the chair, spinning in a few lazy circles, “The Gala for CNRI had a lot of wealthy people with influences who may have caught our scent. But… I just…” he leaned forward, steepling his hands and pressing them against his lips.

“What is it?” Dig pressed.

“The Royal Flush Gang – this wasn’t their first bank heist, nor was it their most secure target. They attacked Redwood during the night, where there wouldn’t be many witnesses. The only man there was the nighttime security guard, and he’d been chloroformed.”

“What’s so unusual about that?”

“I’ve gone over the fight in my head a million times,” Oliver said and shook his head, “but for the life of me, I can’t figure out how the alarm went off.”

“There are a bunch of hidden alarm buttons, Oliver,” Diggle started, “Maybe when the guard woke up he set one of them off.”

Oliver shook his head again, “No. I was watching him. He went straight to grab the shotgun. Didn’t go anywhere near the tellers’ desks. There’s no way that he could’ve done it.”

Diggle let out a rough exhale, sitting down next to him, “What do you think happened, then?”

Oliver gestured towards the bug, “I think whoever planted _that_ also set off the alarm.”

Diggle raised his eyebrows, “You think they’re an employee at Redwood National?”

Oliver shook his head and rubbed his temples, “No. There was no one else at the bank – I’m sure of that. I think someone set it off remotely. Right when the guard pointed the gun.”

Diggle puffed out his cheeks, thinking. “They’d have to have a pretty strong background in hacking into computer and camera systems,” he said after a couple seconds pause, “Did you meet any computer wizards at the Gala?”

Oliver’s eyebrows furrowed, “No. Not at the Gala.”

* * *

 Felicity was still wide awake at two in the morning, just listening in to the police radar and making sure no one was on Oliver’s trail. From the cameras mounted in the old factory, she watched vigilantly for any sign of a police squad or any other possible trackers.

No one walked in after the Hood darted past the shadows and into the basement. When he left the factory nearly three hours later, she finally cut the feed and turned off her computer. After a few seconds, she managed to breathe a sigh of relief.

“My hair is going to turn white because of him,” she mumbled to the empty room, getting out of her computer chair and stretching. Her back cracked – testament to how tense she’d been, waiting for some bizarre twist that would bring along the destruction of her future.

In the harsh light of the kitchen, she caught her reflection in the window above her sink. She frowned. She looked even more tired than she felt, the overhead lighting darkening the circles under her eyes.

Was that wrinkle there before? Jesus, was that a gray hair?

She leaned in closer to the reflection, when suddenly everything in the apartment went dark.

Terror seized her. She felt her own breath refract against the window pane. Everything was silent, except for the footsteps in her living room, the sounds softened by the carpet.

Someone was in her house.

She turned around to the silhouette illuminated by the street lamps shining through the window. A very tall silhouette, hooded, and holding a bow and arrow pointed right at her.

No. This wasn’t how it happened the first time at all.

“Wh-what are you doing here?” she stuttered and tried to back away, but the kitchen counter pressed into her back.                                                                                   

“Felicity Smoak,” The Arrow said, his voice ragged, “You have failed this city.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew!
> 
> Follow me at angelaandmels.tumblr.com and feel free to send prompts, comments, or questions there. 
> 
> Please comment - they're really helpful and give me the kick in the ass I sometimes need!


	6. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys, I know I know, it's been a while. School is a lot of work, I turned 21 and have been drunk for like two weeks straight, I've been baking and trying to potty train my daughter (TMI, but she finally peed in the potty yesterday!). 
> 
> So this chapter is short. I know, it's short. I contemplating adding the next chapter onto it to make it longer, but that would've meant taking another week or two.
> 
> This whole chapter takes place over the course of maybe less than half an hour. All one scene.

Felicity had noticed she’d been easily upset over the past several weeks in the past. Panic attacks that rivalled her anxiety when her dad first left, she’d fainted a few times (which was unexpected because she’d never fainted before in her _life_ ), thrown up more than her junior year at MIT, and was constantly fatigued. Her health and energy had been, at best, incredibly annoying.

Now, standing in her kitchen with an arrow pointed to her chest, she wanted nothing more than to faint.

“What?” she gasped, leaning back in an awkward angle, trying to put more distance between herself and the hooded figure in front of her.

The Arrow took another step forward, not lowering his bow, “What connection do you have to the Royal Flush Gang?”

She nearly choked on her air, “What?”

He stepped even closer, the point of his arrow only five feet away from her heart. Her blood pounded so hard in her ears she almost had to read his lips for the next words.

“You hacked into the security system at Redwood National,” he grunted. His throat would probably hurt from having to Dark-Knight his words. When did he get the voice modulator?

“Hacking is such an ugly word…” she trailed off when she saw him pull just a bit tighter on his bow string. She gulped, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I tracked the signal back to this address,” he growled and Felicity felt the panic threaten to bubble over. She’d gone over the tracks so many times – doubled back dozens of times – it should’ve been impossible.

“How could you… I was so careful…” she said and immediately regretted it when she saw his chin lift just the slightest degree and his shoulders relax just a hair. Realization hit her square in the chest and she gasped in indignation, “You were bluffing!”

“And you’re a criminal,” the Hood shot back.

“I was just trying to help?” she offered weakly. The Hood remained stoic in response. “I mean, not help the Royal Flush Gang. I don’t help bank robbers. Especially not the kind who shoot people. I don’t help any kind of people who shoot people. At least, not with guns.” The Hood seemed to tense at that, although she couldn’t really be sure – he seemed tense about everything. “I mean, not just guns. I don’t help people who shoot with anything. Cross bows, bean bag guns, torpedo launchers…”

“Then who were you trying to help?” The Hood asked and she swallowed when she realized the circle she’d talked herself into.

God, she was tired. The last of her adrenaline was starting to drain from her veins and the idea of curling up on the kitchen tile was looking a bit tempting. The Hood lowered his bow and began rustling around for a pocket, giving her a couple seconds to attempt to relax, now that imminent death didn’t seem to be on the agenda for her.

That was, until the Hood found what he was looking for and pulled something out, holding it in front of her.

“Did you plant this bug on Oliver Queen?”

She flinched. And apparently looked incredibly guilty, because the Hood shook his hand just a bit, prompting her for an answer.

“I uh… I don’t know what you’re talking about Oliv –,” son of a bitch, “I mean, Arrow- I mean… scary Hood-Arrow guy,” she stumbled over what was hopefully going to be a convincing lie, but the way Oliver’s head snapped up when she (almost) said his name did not comfort her.

“What did you say?” he asked in the gruffest way she had ever heard, probably trying to convince her that his voice was oh-so-incredibly different than the billionaire’s.

“I… I said I don’t know what you’re talking about. About the bug. I didn’t plant a bug. On Oliver Queen. Well, I mean, I’ve never planted a bug on anyone. Certainly not Oliver Queen – I mean, Mr. Queen. Nope. Never. Never would do something illegal like that. I’m a very legal person. Heck, I’m not even sure I know what a bug is,” her lip twitched in an uncomfortable grimace and she shrugged her shoulders nervously and looked at her nails before coming to her senses and trying to relax.

Her foot tapped the floor.

The Hood’s eyes trained on her foot the second it made the soft tap against the tile and Felicity gave one last attempt to hold her breath until she passed out.

She closed her eyes and wished the ground would just swallow her up. Her one tell, the one that had been figuratively beaten out of her by Diggle, Sara, and Oliver alike. All that hard work, gone. Give her one sleepless night and several weeks of stress and she was back at square one. She slowly opened one eye, hoping that the Hood hadn’t noticed.

His glare knocked the air out of her lungs. In one swift movement, he pulled his hood back, showing silhouette of the most famous man in Starling City. She had to double-take at the grease-paint, having half-expected him to be wearing a mask. But instead of the warm, happy expression he usually had when pulling back his hood to greet her in the Foundry, his blue eyes were looking at her in confusion.

“How did you know who I am?”

She wet her lips, for lack of anything else to say. This wasn’t how it happened the first time – not even close. And here it was, happening way too fast. Instead of bleeding out in the back of her Mini and coming to her out of desperation, he was in her kitchen, suspicious and easily able to kill her.

“Answer me, Felicity,” he hissed, taking a half step forward, his face right in front of hers and pausing when she jumped in surprise and made a small squeak.

She avoided his eyes, looking squarely at his chin and the small bit of stubble already growing back.

“I, um… I’m blonde but… I’m not that blonde.”

It was tense as they stood still, her back arched in an uncomfortable angle leaning back against her counter, sharply focused on the chin in front of her. They breathed the same air before he finally relented, pulling away from her and taking a couple steps back, running a gloved hand over his hair.

“How long have you known?”

She closed her eyes, unsure of how to really answer, “Since um… Since the beginning.” She peaked up from behind her lashes.

He looked tired. And annoyed. She looked down at her feet and didn’t look up until he made an aggravated sigh.

He pointed at her, “Leave me alone. Don’t try to help me again. I shouldn’t have come to you in the first place, it’s too dangerous.”

She had expected him to say something like that, but it didn’t stop her mouth from falling open and feeling a little bit of righteous anger.

“What are you talking about?” she said when he turned around and headed towards the window he’d apparently broken into when he’d gotten into her house the first time, “You need me!”

He paused and looked over his shoulder, his mouth twisting reluctantly, “No, I really don’t.”

She followed after him, grabbing his arm before he could sprint and jump out her window, like he was making out to do, “Let me help. Please, it’s too dangerous for you to do this stuff without some eyes and ears to help.”

“I already have quite capable eyes and ears in the City, thank you very much,” he said sarcastically, jerking his arm to try to get her to let go, but she held fast.  

“The Bratva aren’t going to be able to help you hack into the street’s security cameras,” she shot back and he paused, looking at her so intensely she had to close her eyes. She bit her lip – she was giving away way too much information. She took a deep breath and tried to re-phrase it, “I mean, I could’ve figured out that the Royal Gang was going to target Redwood National hours before Diggle heard it on the bug.”

That was the wrong thing to say.

She found herself slammed against the wall of her living room in half a second, her skull colliding not-too-gently and scrambling her vision for a few seconds. She gasped in surprise and blindly tried to move, instead finding a gloved hand around her neck.

She clawed at his wrist, but he wasn’t applying enough pressure to choke her, instead using it as a not-too-subtle threat to stay still.

“How much do you know?” he whispered and she gulped.

“I know a lot,” she said and tried to slow her breathing when his grip around her neck tightened, “That’s why you need me. I can do a lot with computers. I can be the eyes and ears you need.”

“I don’t need your help,” he repeated at her and released his grip. Her hands went up to her neck in relief. When she managed to look back up, he was heading towards her bedroom.

Oh, this is not how she wanted to get him into her room. She stumbled forward, finding her stride just in time to not look a complete idiot stumbling into the doorway to find Oliver looking at her computers in a fairly malicious way.

“Yes – you do need my help. The Police department has your fingerprints. What are you going to do if they lift a couple off of one of your crime scenes? I can hack into their mainframe! I can get anything deleted or burned!”

He sarcastically wiggled his fingers, clad in a leather glove. His eyes never left from scanning her computer, but she refrained from rolling her eyes. She crossed her arms in front of her chest in a way she hoped didn’t look entirely too childish, seeing as she was in her pajamas.

“What about if you bleed? They have your DNA in their system. Does your magic leather suit keep you from bleeding?”

He didn’t answer her. Instead, she watched in horror as he wound his fist back and punched forward. Right through her computer monitor.

She screeched in surprise and took a staggered, half step forward before his movements caught her eye, when he grabbed her tablet and slammed it halfway against her desk. The poor thing nearly folded in half, its screen shattered and its case cracked open, showing the hardware underneath. He couldn’t have done more damage if he’d ran a semi over it.

“Stop! What the Hell are you doing? I need that for work!” she practically yelled, picking up the mangled piece of hardware.

“You won’t be going to work. You’re fired,” Oliver shot back, and despite the steely look on his face, his eyes were angry behind the grease paint.

She knew the look was supposed to be intimidating – and if she were completely honest, she was a teensy bit intimidated – but her brain became fogged with rage. “Fired?” her voice broke as it climbed up several octaves, paralleled by only the Canary’s Cry. “You can’t fire me! I’m the best tech in the entire Applied Sciences division!” she took a few panting breaths, winding up further than she did when she caught her mom making out with her very first high school boyfriend, “And you don’t even work there!”

“You stay away from me, you get out of this city,” he growled, baring his teeth and pointing his finger in a deliberate jabbing motion, “Or I’ll make sure you never have a work in your field again.”

She placed her hands on her hips and gave a very sarcastic laugh, calling his bluff, “As if the Hood would ever risk me tattling on his big secret. And, I’ll have you know, I have standing offers from companies all over the country – and several here in Starling!”

Oliver’s lips pressed together as they stood across from each other, arms crossed across their chests in a chilly stand-off. Felicity wished she could say that she managed to maintain eye contact, but after a long thirty seconds she moved her gaze to the carpet, where she saw a piece of glass that had probably chipped off of her tablet.

It would’ve added fuel to her fire if it wasn’t almost five in the morning.

She heard Oliver give a long sigh and looked up. His shoulders were slumped and he was looking at the ceiling.

“Is it money you want?” he asked, and she shook her head to clear it, the question taking her by surprise, “I can pay you anything you want.”

“Money? What? No. My salary is quite nice as it is. I want to help save this city.”

He looked at her with a rueful expression, “I’m not going to let you keep your job after this,” he told her, like she was some sort of idiot.

“What are you talking about?” she said, feeling a bit panicky.

“You know too much about what I do. I just can’t let you stay at Queen Consolidated.”

“Well that’s tough, because there’s no way I’m leaving,” she insisted. If anything in this timeline was to stay how it had been, she needed to stay at Queen Consolidated. She needed to continue working in the IT Department and moonlight as the supreme-hacker-overlord (as she called herself in her head and maybe a few times out loud) in the Foundry. That _needed_ to happen.

“Please,” she pleaded, and she hated how desperate she sounded. She was close to going on her knees and begging, “Please, let me help you save Starling.”

He shook his head. “No.”

And he left, leaving her standing in her bedroom of broken hardware. She heard him crawl out of her window in the peripheral, but she stood frozen like a statue, rejected and tired in a way she hadn’t ever felt before.

And she cried.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew!
> 
> As always, follow me at angelaandmels.tumblr.com for updates and such. Please feel free to send me a massage on there. Please comment! I love knowing how people feel about this fic!


	7. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felicity confronts Oliver at the Foundry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! I promised a new chapter would be out before St. Patrick's Day, and what'dya know! I keep my promises! I'm incredibly happy that everyone is still enjoying the story. I'm sorry this chapter is another short one. Hopefully I'll have some time over Spring Break to really get some outlining and chapter work done. Anyway, enjoy the chapter!

Felicity didn’t wake up until nearly 2pm on Sunday, and despite the sun high in the sky and her stomach grumbling for something to eat, she buried her face into the pillow and cried a couple more bitter tears before summoning all the will in her bones to peel herself from the bed and do _something_ to make herself feel normal.

That something ended up with her angrily eating a piece of dry toast in her bathroom as she undressed from her, frankly, smelly clothes and getting into the shower to wash the stale, anxious sweat from her body.

She wiped the fog off the mirror and cringed when she saw her reflection. Pulling down the thin, dark skin under her eyes she let out a small sigh.

“I look _I’m_ the one wearing grease paint. That stuff cannot be good for your skin. I wonder why he isn’t covered with pimples all around his eyes,” she muttered, before starting to pull her hair up in a ponytail and looking at herself in the reflection. “Well, I know the reason for that. His skin just isn’t human,” she said, looking back at the mirror. “You will change his mind.”

“You _will_ change his mind,” she repeated, staring at the blue eyes in front of her and nodding reassuringly.

By the time she was done, almost 3:30, she was determined.

* * *

 

The sky was just barely getting pink when Felicity pulled her Mini to the side of the road in front of the steel factory. She took another appreciative look in the rearview mirror. Yes, she definitely didn’t look like a woman who had only woken up three hours ago. Not at all like a woman who had been shaken down the night before – or really, just that morning – and had thousands of dollars of technology broken by a brutish fist.

She gave a small sniffle for her tablet. He’d been a good companion.

She had barely taken a few steps from her car when the door to the Foundry opened and a very exasperated Oliver Queen walked, no, marched out.

“What the Hell are you doing here?”

“I’m here to help,” she said, keeping her chin raised and trying not to swallow so conspicuously. Her fingers started to tremble so she clasped her hands together.

“It’s almost dark. In the Glades. You know what happens to young blonde women in the Glades at night?” Oliver hissed and began herding her back to her car.

She tried not to stumble back to the street and took another quick few steps away, “Then take me inside!”

He blew out his cheeks and looked at her like she’d grown five heads, “I told you to stay away from this!”

“And I told _you_ that you need me. I’m invaluable to your mission.”

He rolled his eyes at her, “You don’t even know what you’re getting yourself into. Look, I have a hard enough time with everything else going on – I don’t need a girl with a vigilante-crush following me around.”

She saw red, “What?!” she sputtered.

“I don’t need copycats or people like you diluting this mission. People die. I might die,” Oliver’s face was serious and intimidating and it would have a much stronger effect if she hadn’t watched him walk to her death before.

When he hadn’t had her help.

He turned to walk away and she tried to keep the desperation from her voice as she ran forward, gripping him by the crook up his arm and spinning him back to look at her.

“I’m not going into this with any kind of,” she waved her hands around in the air, “ideas of grandeur or glory. In fact, I know a lot of people in this City look at you as a murderer. But I don’t! I mean, I guess you are a murderer. But you like, only kill the people who want to kill good people!”

His nostrils flared and she started to stumble over her words.

“And I mean, if you think of it that way, it’s more of a net positive isn’t it?”

He shook her hand free and rolled his eyes. His jaw was tight and he pointed to her car, “I don’t want your help. I work alone.”

Her eyes widened in anger and she gasped, “Alone? What about John?”

“John Diggle is a soldier,” he ground out, “he can shoot a gun and kill.”

“But he can’t hack into the police servers and see all the cameras set up around the city. He can’t hack into government satellites. He can’t get into ARGUS,” she was losing her confidence, and her voice became more and more pleading.

Oliver’s eyes widened a bit before narrowing again, “What do you know about ARGUS?” He looked around, like he was looking for something, before roughly grabbing her arm and pulling her towards the factory.

“Ow! Oliver, stop! What are you doing?” she yelped, tripping over her own feet trying to keep up with his long strides. Oliver didn’t answer, plugging a code into the keypad and pulling her inside the Foundry, where he at least had the decency to slow their way down the stairs.

It was a sickening feeling of déjà-vu.

“Oliver, what the Hell are you doing, man?” Diggle met them at the bottom of the stairs, his eyes wild with confusion and a bit of anger.

“Get some zip ties,” Oliver said in response, shoving her towards a chair, “Sit down,” he barked.

Despite all the talking-up in the mirror earlier and confidence she’d had driving up to the factory, it was all gone, and Felicity was terrified. She sat down obediently and tried to blink away tears. Oliver grabbed her wrists and she heard the zip of plastic as the ties tightened around them.

To his credit, they weren’t super tight.

“Oliver, I will repeat, what the Hell are you doing?” Diggle looked back and forth between the man and the woman pathetically trying to blink away tears and maintain some sort of dignity, “She’s just a girl who got in too far. What are you going to do – torture her?”

“Dammit Diggle!” Oliver snapped and hit something – probably a table, Felicity couldn’t really see. She flinched at the loud noise, but Oliver was silent after his outburst.

Diggle’s hand reached behind his back, and in a rush of panic she realized he was reaching for his gun.

“No! Guys! Stop!” she yelled out and made to stand up, but the ties around her wrists forced her back down. Diggle looked at her like she was crazy and, well, Oliver was still behind her, but she figured he was giving her a similar look as well. She swallowed the lump in her throat and closed her eyes, counting backwards and trying to steady her breath. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know – I promise.”

“Diggle, can you leave?” Oliver’s voice was much less angry, but it was still far from comforting.

“You’ve got to be kidding me. I’m not leaving her here alone with you for one second. Any questions you want to ask her – you need to ask them in front of me. Or else I’ll kill you myself.”

There was a pregnant pause where nothing happened, and suddenly the zip ties around her wrist were released, and she was being grabbed by her shoulders and pulled into a standing position.

She turned around to see a grim looking Oliver staring over her head to the other man in the room. He didn’t even look at her when he gritted out a tight, “Looks like you’re free to go, Ms. Smoak.”

To say she didn’t run out of the Foundry and nearly jump into her Mini (where she hurriedly locked the doors) would be a lie.

* * *

 

The last place she expected to drive to in her spinning haze of panic was a bar, but she looked up, in surprise, as she pulled her Mini into a small parking lot.

She tapped her fingers on the steering wheel for half a minute, chewing on her lower lip and contemplating. Yeah, so the rejection and stress and the almost-interrogation meant she could probably use a drink. A couple drinks. Maybe drunk enough to need a cab home, provided her drunk mouth could keep from spilling secrets of vigilantes and time-travel (one or both of which would probably get her locked in a mental institution for a few days).

She glanced briefly at her center console at a rusted penny. Heads or tails? Heads, she’d go in, tails, she’d go home and drink a bottle of wine or two. Placing it on her thumbnail, she tossed it up in the air, caught it with her opposite hand, banged the window with her elbow, yelped in pain, and flipped the coin onto the top of her other hand.

Castaways was a small establishment. It had the bar, a couple tables, and a dart board. Felicity had had a friend from college who’d also relocated to Starling City drag her here a few times until she was relocated to Chicago. Since then, Felicity had politely like’d the page on Facebook and hadn’t made the drive down to the borderline of the Glades ever again.

Until now, she supposed.

The place was more for the working class, and she felt a tad overdressed in her rumpled blazer and skirt, but no one was able to look up from their game of pool to spare her a look. She hopped onto the stool, absently enjoying the spin of the chair and patiently waited for the bartender to come her way.

“I’d like a martini,” she said when the guy came her way. Then she leaned over the bar in a hurry when the bartender started to turn away to make the drink, “I mean, an appletini. Don’t get me a martini. I hate martinis.” She paused and the bartender shrugged, “Oh, and I’d like to open a tab.”

Through the diminishing haze of the alcohol, Felicity noticed a man by the door. He was constantly walking in and out, bringing the smell of tobacco smoke in with him. He hadn’t ordered a drink in the entire... she checked her phone.

Wow, it was already 11?

But still, she’d been enjoying the music and background music for nearly four hours, and not once had the guy even ordered a beer. Instead, he lingered in the shadows by the door, greeting people with a nod when they came in, and murmuring something to them when they packed up to leave.

She felt sober enough to drive after sipping on her third glass of water and running to the bathroom fifteen times. She signaled to the bartender to close out her tab and hopped off the stool, only stumbling a little bit when she landed a bit crookedly on the heel of her shoe.

Sure enough, the man in the back’s eyes looked her way when they heard the noise, and she tried to avoid making eye contact as she weaved her way through the murmuring patrons.

Despite her stubborn gaze at the ground, as soon as she stepped outside to the cooler air of the outer Glades, the man’s voice came from behind her.

“Hey honey, you looking to party?”

She shuddered and looked over her shoulder, “No, not really. Sorry.” Now that she was out in the night air, with a streetlamp illuminating the parking lot, he looked awfully familiar. A sick feeling bloomed in her stomach.

“You sure? I got everything you need,” the guy said, pulling a cigarette and looking around the parking lot before lighting it up. Then the smoke hit her and she was momentarily transported back to freshman year at MIT.

Yeah – that was definitely not tobacco.

“Oh, no, I’m not much of a stoner, really,” she scratched the side of her face, unsure why she was continuing the conversation. Something about him was so familiar, “My only real encounter with drugs was a pot brownie in college. And it had nuts in it.” The man raised his eyebrow. “Oh, wow, yeah, that probably made no sense. I’m allergic to nuts. So when I ate it my face went” she made a squish sound and blew out her hands.

The man chuckled and took another long drag, making the courteous effort not to blow the smoke in her face. He rummaged around in his pockets, pulling out a plastic baggie, “This ain’t got no nuts in it sweetheart, I guarantee it.”

She leaned in closer, looking at the baggie of green and black pills and suddenly remembered why the man’s face was familiar.

She and the Arrow had busted him for Vertigo.

* * *

“Answer the phone, answer the phone,” she repeated to herself over and over again as she drove exactly the speed limit. Her free hand tapped anxiously on the steering wheel as the ringback tone droned on and on. She really did not want to leave a message.

On the sixth ring, the line was picked up. “Hello?”

“John,” she breathed, and closed her eyes for just a second in relief, “John, it’s Felicity.”

“What the-? How did you find my number?” his confused voice was almost amusing and she bit back a giggle. John of the future would never doubt her ability to find the number of any person in the city.

“It’s not important,” she said, taking another glance at her speedometer and easing off the gas. “I just… I have something you really need to look into.”

“What is it?” she could hear his curiosity and his hesitance over the receiver.

“I’ll show you when I meet you. Can you be at 32nd and Polk?”

There was a pause on the other end before she heard a small sigh, “Give me five minutes,” and the line went dead.

* * *

Felicity tried not to pace back and forth underneath the lone streetlight. She checked the street signs on the corner and checked her phone.

It had been two minutes.

She started tapping one of her feet and hugged herself like she was cold. Except it was nearly seventy-five degrees and she probably looked super suspicious. She forced her arms down by her sides. Now they were too straight. She tried bending them a little but that felt uncomfortable. She planted one on her hip and a car that was driving by slowed down and started to roll down the window.

At her enraged expression the man inside had the decency to look sheepish and peel off.

She checked her phone again. Three minutes.

An engine’s low growl crept its way up to her ears, and she immediately recognized it as the van. She heard the door open and close, and the quick footsteps walking up the sidewalk, and she smiled reflexively at Diggle when he rounded the corner. When he responded with a bewildered look, she cleared her throat and rummaged in her pockets for the tiny plastic baggie.

“What are you doing?” he said in a low voice, looking around, “It’s almost midnight. You really shouldn’t be here.”

“Something happened when I was at the bar,” she said, still patting the pockets on her skirt before remembering she had put the bag in her purse.

“You what?” he sputtered, “You nearly got interrogated by the local vigilante and went out for a drink afterwards?”

Felicity pursed her lips, fishing the pills out, “Here.” She held the pack out to him.

“And you’re offering his black driver some drugs?” Diggle said apprehensively, plucking the bag from her hands and holding it by the corner with his thumb and forefinger. He held it up, lighting the pills better to get a closer look.

“I’m not… I’m not selling them to you. I wouldn’t do that. I’m not a big drug person. I’m not even a small drug person. I’m not a drug person at all.” Diggle raised his eyebrow at her and she wiped her sweaty palms on her skirt, “It’s called Vertigo. It’s new on the market.”

“So?” he asked.

“It’s a bad drug,” she said and he rolled his eyes. “And not just like, in an “all-drugs-are-bad” way but in a way where it’s being made to weaken the Glades and Starling City in general. The guy who makes it – he’s called The Count. And he’s psychotic and sadistic. And he’s killing people testing out this drug.”

Diggle sighed, “What do you want me to do about it?” he murmured, “Oliver isn’t really in the vigilante business to bust drug dealers.”

She pressed her lips together, “Just… I would do a test on the components of the drug. And keep your ears open about it. I think Count Vertigo is a person worth going up against.”

Diggle shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose for a few seconds, “And if we find something out?”

“You can call me,” she nodded, “My number’s in the phone book.”

“Of course it is,” he muttered, shoving the pills into his jacket pocket. “So – are you planning on telling me why Oliver Queen, billionaire-vigilante extraordinaire, nearly tortured you this evening?”

She had a feeling it was because a blonde IT girl wasn’t supposed to know about secret government agencies. But that wasn’t the interesting part about Diggle’s question, “He didn’t tell you?”

“That man doesn’t tell me much of anything. I have a feeling you aren’t, either.”

The statement made her stomach tighten in a very uncomfortable way.

* * *

 

Around one in the morning, her phone rang again. She jumped up from her kitchen table and bowl of Raisin Bran to grab it from the counter. She’d only gotten a brief glance at the screen. But instead of a blocked or unknown number, it was one already in her contact list.

“Hello?” she answered, confused. Why would he be calling at this time of night? She couldn’t remember a midnight crisis any time before joining with the Arrow. And certainly not from Gary, who would probably let the entire mainframe of Queen Consolidated burn down if it was after nine.

“Felicity, is that you?” his voice came over the speaker.

“Yeah. What’s going on? Do you need me to come down?”

“No. No, this is about something else.”

Her eyebrows furrowed, trying desperately to remember something. Maybe she was just a little too buzzed, but the beginning of a hangover headache was starting to creep behind her eyes.

“Felicity, you’ve been terminated from Queen Consolidated.”

She lurched forward, grabbing the counter with her free hand, “What?”

“I know… I… It wasn’t my choice,” Gary’s voice quivered just a touch on the other end and it filled her with anger.

“Who’s making you do this? I’m the best person in IT department! I could make computers sing!” she was practically yelling and caught a glance of her reflection in the mirror. She looked so angry. Her veins felt like they were burning with it.

If Oliver Queen popped up in her kitchen again, she’d punch his lights out.

“I got word from uh… further up in the company,” Gary paused, before gushing a quick, “I have no idea why you’re being fired. The guy wouldn’t explain it to me, but it’s an executive order. And I know that I’m not supposed to, but please, use me as a reference for your next job search.”

Felicity swallowed and tried to blink away the angry tears in her eyes. “Tha-” she started but had to stop because her voice quivered, “Thank you, Gary.” Then she pulled her phone away and hit the End Call button.

And threw the phone across the room.

On a pillow, of course, she really couldn’t afford to wreck her last bit of technology.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, remember to follow me on angelaandmels.tumblr.com for updates and sneak peaks on chapters. Feel free to send me messages in my ask box. Please comment! Your comments are the main force in driving me to continue to write.
> 
> Talking about the chapter though, Season 1 Oliver is so hardened and angry. He's really a person to fear, and I don't think it's very out-of-character for him to be cautious and borderline-violent with someone who's name-dropping big government entities, especially when ARGUS has already screwed Oliver over at this point in time.
> 
> Anyway - I hope you enjoyed it!


	8. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felicity enacts some revenge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heeeeyyy... I know, it's been a while. Messages have been pouring in. I promise, I haven't forgotten about the story, but I've been away from my computer a lot, so most of my work has been outlining. The semester is also drawing to a close, meaning a lot of tests and papers and speeches.
> 
> AND I got a new job that requires a lot of memorization. AND my daughter has decided that sleeping in her own bed is out-of-style and snuggling in with mommy and refusing to give her some alone time to type is in vogue.
> 
> THAT BEING SAID. I am anticipating a lot more free time once the semester is over, around May 14th. That's just one more month! Yay! But at that point, I'd expect updates to be more often and regular. And hey, maybe even some long chapters.
> 
> This chapter was originally deemed too short, but I still think it's a nice place to end. Enjoy!

The benefit of being unemployed is the ability to sleep in. There’s no boss to blow up your phone in the middle of the night because a server is on fire. There’s no alarm going off before the sun rises, resulting in a lame attempt to peel oneself from their covers and try to look reasonable and professional, just to travel a few floors down in the elevator and work in the basement of a multi-billion dollar company.

The drawbacks are, of course, everything else.

Felicity stared at the ceiling as it began to turn pink with the rising sun. She hadn’t been able to sleep, all-nighters seemed to be her go-to lately, flip-flopping between angrily punching her pillow and crying hard sobs as she rolled around on the bed, languishing in her own misery.

She rubbed at the dry tear tracks on her cheeks, the salt scrubbing it raw. She turned on her side, if only to avoid the red numbers on her bedside clock, mocking her inability to sleep. It was nearing on six.

Her eyes clamped shut in one last attempt to fall asleep, before she grabbed her phone from underneath her pillow and stared at it.

She had enough emergency funds to pay rent and utilities for… the next two years, due to some savvy saving drilled into her by her mother. She bit her lip. Well, maybe for fifteen more months. And technically she should have some severance pay coming, but still, the last tech-assault by the Green Arrow meant she was going to be blowing a large amount of money building a new computer.

She couldn’t help it. She propped herself up on her elbow, just enough to see the empty desk on the far wall. She sniffled. Nearly everything had to be scrapped, except for a few pieces that had been salvaged that were hidden in a box in her closet, just in case another vigilante tech-sweep decided to break into her house.

Her poor babies.

She made the conscious effort not to look too closely at her reflection in the mirror as she brushed her teeth after the heart breakfast of coffee with half a cup of sugar angrily stirred in. Her shoulders slumped from the weight of her arms, and her legs felt, oddly enough, like concrete noodles. Putting on a pair of jeans at the point would’ve been harder than climbing Mount Everest.

She did manage to put her feet in a pair of sneakers. No socks, though.

Her red mini pulled into the parking lot of Starling Tech Supplies at 7 am. She’d really prefer to buy the best of the best supplies online, but her purchases would be much, much stealthier if she bought them with cash, especially since she was already knee-deep in illegal activities. The last thing she needed was to be raided because some sensitive tech was being delivered to her house. Once again, she spared a sniffle. It would’ve been so much easier if she could still get things shipped to the IT department at Queen Consolidated.

She shuffled to the sliding glass doors like a zombie, covering her mouth in a long yawn. She took another brief glance at her list and forced herself to walk down the aisles, getting what she needed. She felt like she had a cannonball chained to her ankles, and weights on her eyelids. She briefly wondered if anyone would object if she grabbed one of the chairs by the service station and fell asleep on it.

From the looks the employees were giving her, she looked worse than she felt.

Which made it all the worse when she turned the corner to look at monitors and came face-to-face with Tommy Merlyn.

She spun on her heel to dart down a different aisle as soon as possible, but her fatigued body betrayed her, and she bumped into one of the displays, nearly knocking it over and frightening the high school aged employee.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” she said, frantically trying to keep the display monitor from falling onto the ground. “I did not mean to do that. I will pay for it if it’s damaged. Although it’s probably not, right? It’s probably just a plastic replica so people don’t run away with thousands of dollars’ worth of merchandise. You would be insane to actually put a real monitor up on the shelves where people like me could knock it over.”

The employee looked at her like she was deranged, and from the delighted expression on Tommy’s face, the girl’s assessment was correct.

“Smoak!” Tommy said, his expression unusually chipper for being up so early, but betrayed by the dark circles underneath. She had a nagging feeling his all-nighter had been a bit soul-crushing as well. “Look at you!” he said with the famous Merlyn grin, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in pajamas, which is something I can’t say about most women I party with.”

Her face twisted into some sort of grimace which made him laugh harder and his heavy hand landed on her shoulder, “I’m just kidding, Smoaky. I can call you that, right? Like Smokey the Bear? You sure look like a bear right now.”

She jerked her shoulder away from his hand, “What?”

“Sorry,” he said, his hands kind of all over the place and impossible for her eyes to follow, “I’m on a ton of coffee. The good stuff, from the place on 7th with the foamy cappuccinos. And the really strong espresso from like Italy or something.” He paused, as though deep in thought for a few seconds, “Hey, you’re good with tech stuff, right? Can you give me some advice?”

She wanted nothing more to say “Go away” or “No way in Hell” or, most likely, some sort of mumbled excuse followed by an awkward shuffle out of the store where she’d wait in her car for him to leave, but Tommy Merlyn’s puppy dog eyes were difficult to refuse even on days when she didn’t feel like death. So instead her shoulders slumped and she rubbed her eyes, “Yeah, sure. What do you need?”

“Well,” he said, bringing a hand up to his mouth and pondering, “I’m trying to convince a girl to go on a date with me.” His eyes narrowed when she rolled hers, “I’m being serious, Felicia.”

She gaped at him but he laughed, “I’m just joking, Felicity,” he said, enunciating every syllable of her name, “But that’s what you get for rolling your eyes at my love life.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, rolling her shoulders, “I’m just not sure why billionaire Tommy Merlyn needs to buy a…” she leaned in closer to the display and nearly choked on her spit, coughing at the price tag, “… an incredibly expensive computer. Who could you possibly know who would need something like this? The NSA?”

A hint of a smile flitted across his lips, and his eyes lit up like it was Christmas, “You know that CNRI gala I threw a little while back?” When she nodded, he continued, “The girl works there. Laurel Lance. CNRI needs a better computer. Something faster with a lot more space. I think the ones they’re using came from dumpsters back in the nineties.”

Her heart twinged a bit, hearing him talk about Laurel. She had to take a few seconds and blink away any threatening tears (being sleep deprived made her a bit sobbier) before clearing her throat, “Tommy, I don’t think you need to get her a computer to get her to go out with you.”

He looked at her for a few seconds before sighing in defeat, “Yeah, you’re probably right.” He ran a hand through his hair, “What should I do, then?”

She managed a real smile, standing in the middle of a computer store, unemployed, heartbroken, and running on fumes, “I hear that the sushi place up on Greenfield, Toro’s Sushi, is pretty good. How about you try bringing her some for dinner?”

He grinned, “I like the way you think, Felicity.” He began to turn to leave the store before she called after him.

“And Tommy – try to get a good night’s sleep before you try wooing a girl. You look horrible.”

He chuckled his way out of the store, calling back, “I wouldn’t throw stones, _Smokey_.”

* * *

After plugging the wrong wire to the wrong input about five times, Felicity reluctantly pulled herself away from the reasonably expensive “revenge machine” (as she liked to call it) and plopped onto her bed like a dead weight. By the time she woke up, the day had already gone by, sun set well below the horizon, and energy was back in her veins.

As she sat up and moved over to her many plastic bags, full of goodies that had just barely fit into her mini, she felt a strange feeling. Something she hadn’t felt in a while. A smile crept onto her face as she realized what it was.

Excitement.

“Let’s do this, guys,” she said to herself but still managed to look around in embarrassment, “Let’s show Oliver Queen the reason why no one messes with Felicity Smoak.”

It took the entire night, but thanks to her long nap, by the time 3:30 blinked onto her alarm clock, the computer was up and running and she’d already restored her hacks into the SCPD and the street cameras of the city.

She’d had to pause a couple times and think about what exactly she was doing. Really, the last time she’d been this excited was when she got her “nemesis” from the bee-lady in Central City. It was weird considering her now-nemesis was instead one of her best friends and the man she was now in love with.

She’d brushed the rather uncomfortable idea aside multiple times as she chose harder-than-necessary ways to hack into the polices’ computers and the security for Queen Consolidated (which was actually a touch difficult because she was the one who set the firewalls in place and it took _forever_ to find the back door), but now that that was all done and she was sitting with her chin propped on her hand and looking out the window and onto the streets below, her thoughts kept drifting back to her friends in the Foundry.

And she was getting mad.

How _dare_ he break her computers! How _dare_ he attempt to _interrogate_ her! How _dare_ he make her _lose her_ job! She could practically see the steam coming out of her ears as she worked herself up. Despite the hour, there was no way she was going to go to sleep.

She cracked her knuckles. “Okay, setting up the computer was revenge to amateurs. Let’s do some real hacking.”

* * *

 Oliver slammed his hands on the table, the noise echoing from the concrete walls of the lair. Diggle didn’t even flinch. The last few days had been a lot of outbursts from Queen as he tried fruitlessly to get any information from outside the basement.

“I think your little blonde friend decided that if she can’t help you, you won’t be working,” Diggle said, not backing away from the icy glare Oliver gave him. He crossed his arms and leaned against the table as Oliver went back to furiously clicking on the monitor. Diggle looked over his shoulder and pointed to the side, “Well there’s your problem right there. ‘Internet connectivity problems.’”

“Do you think this is funny, Diggle?” Oliver snapped, pushing himself away from the table and grabbing a bo staff, slamming it against a training dummy.

Dig merely raised an eyebrow, “I do think it’s a little funny that a little IT girl has you so rattled. I think I could learn a few things from her.” When Oliver simply returned to pounding on the dummy with the staff, Diggle continued, “Obviously she’s very good at what she does. You mangled her computers and she still managed to keep you and your money from reaching any sort of internet, surveillance, or police scanners from down here. I’m impressed.”

Oliver paused from his dummy beat-down, “She can’t join us,” he gritted through his teeth.

“Why?” Diggle countered, walking to the other side of the dummy to try and meet Oliver’s eyes, “Because it’s dangerous? She seems pretty dead-set on putting herself in danger anyway. At least she’d be a few iotas safer with us. Unless you try to torture her again. I've never really gotten an explanation on what that shit was all about. Do you torture all the pretty blondes you meet at work?”

“She’s…” Oliver hesitated before dropping the staff on the floor with a clank. He ran his hand through his hair, “She’s not what she says she is. There are… things she said to me. Things no normal person in Starling City should know. Especially not an IT girl.”

“What sort of things, Oliver?” Diggle leaned in, his eyebrows furrowed.

But instead of answering, Oliver turned his back on him and walked back to the computers, starting to mess around on the keyboard.

“Don’t you do this, Oliver,” Diggle called out, but Oliver only hunched his shoulders higher. Diggle marched up to him, “I know this hulking, sulking, mysterious thing works really well on the lawyer ladies and party girls of Starling City, but I’ve seen a lot of pretty faces and structures jaw lines in the military and believe me, I won’t stand for the silent treatment.”

Oliver’s lips pressed together but said nothing, so Diggle continued.

“We’re supposed to be partners in this, Queen. You don’t get to ask me to come on board and then keep me in the dark!” his voice began to rise and he hit the table, the loud thud resounding through the room, “I’m not going to be your lackey in this. I need more trust and respect than some stranger you might’ve found on the street!”

“You don’t understand!” Oliver finally yelled, his face red, “Those were five years where nothing good happened. Nothing is what you think it is. Not the government, not the military, nothing! There are secrets I learned over those five years that I need to keep. To keep my family, and my city, safe.”

Diggle stood there, still, and managed to keep his face looking stoic, “And why is Felicity such a threat to your family’s safety? What has she done that was so menacing she had to lose her job?”

“There are…” Oliver paused, and for a second, Diggle thought he wasn’t going to continue. But instead, he closed his eyes and took a few deep breathes, “There are things that she knows. Things no normal civilian should know. There has to be some… Ulterior motive for her to be helping us.”

For a long time, the words hung between them, before Diggle broke the silence with a small sigh. “Oliver – is her name on the list?”

Oliver’s eyebrows furrowed, “No, but not every bad person in the world is on the list.”

Diggle pulled his shoulders back, standing straight, “I think you’re judging Felicity too harshly. Sure, she may know more than what she’s letting on, but I think she’s still on our side.”

“It’s just too dangerous, Diggle. There are too many variables. There’s too much to lose if you’re wrong, and not enough evidence on her side.”

There was another long pause before Dig sighed again, rustling in his jacket pocket and pulling out a small baggie with pills inside. “Felicity contacted me the other day and gave me these.”

Oliver raised an eyebrow, “So she’s a drug dealer now? How does that make her any more trust worthy?”

“Not a drug dealer,” Diggle replied, placing the bag on the table for Oliver to pick up and take a closer look at, “She said someone approached her at a bar in the Glades. He called it Vertigo.”

“Look Diggle, there are surprisingly worse things in the Glades than some guy pushing around some designer drugs,” Oliver said, putting the pills back on the table.

“Look – I’ve asked around. The guy who makes it, he calls himself ‘The Count.’”

“Like the cereal?”

“I don’t make the names.”

The two men shared a short chuckle, the atmosphere in the room thinning out to something less serious and more relaxed. It made it easier to focus.

“Felicity said that he’s killing people to test out this stuff. I’ve heard a few people talking about some mysterious overdoses in the area, especially now that it’s leaving the dark alleys and getting into the clubbing scene. I think this guy may be worth looking into,” Diggle continued.

Oliver wrinkled his nose, “I don’t think a bunch of overdoses is really the Hood’s problem. Seems more like a public health issue.”

“I think this sort of thing might hit you closer than you think, Oliver,” Diggle said, lowering his voice and leaning close, “I’m sure you’ve noticed Thea is more of a party girl than you’d like her to be. These drug dealers, their aspirations aren’t to keep doping up the unemployed, down-and-outs in the Glades. They’re number one target is going to be a billionaire heiress who likes skipping school and spending money on distractions.”

Oliver gritted his teeth and braced himself against the table before pushing off of it. He grabbed his bow, “Well, I guess I’m not going to be able to do any research down here.”

“Where are you going, then?”

“To do some fieldwork,” Oliver replied with a resigned voice, climbing the stairs, “Let’s see what this Count is up to.”

* * *

For some reason, Felicity thought that she’d have the Hood vaulting through her bedroom window and attacking her – or at least, demanding that she lift the block on their internet and satellite access.

She’d even left her windows unlocked.

But instead, days passed without mention. No phone calls, no midnight visits, no cornering her in a dark alleyway when she went on jogs that quickly devolved into walks (she really needed to get into better shape). But even her being blatantly alone, outside, and in some not-so-great parts of town, no vigilante approached her. The only thing she could see possibly being related to Oliver was some small-time drug dealers being turned into the SCPD in mysterious ways.

She’d double, triple, quadruple checked to make sure the block was working (wow would it be embarrassing if she’d completely screwed it up at some point because of her sleep deprivation – she had a reputation to maintain) but everything seemed to be working fine.

Without a goal to propel herself forward, Felicity Smoak was becoming increasingly more blob-like on her couch one Thursday morning, a granola bar in one hand and the remote in another.

“Breaking news!” the reporter on the TV suddenly said, breaking Felicity out of her trance and focusing her. “We’re receiving news of a drive-by shooting in front of Queen Consolidated.”

Felicity shot up, turning up the volume to monstrous levels, stepping closer to the television and leaning closer to the screen. A video from a cell phone came up, a shaky, pixelated, _vertical_ (ugh, she scoffed to herself, can these people learn to hold their phones correctly when shooting a video?) showing two figures on the ground.

One of them was incredibly familiar.

“Moira Queen and Paul Copani were shot at, this morning, by what seemed to be a targeted attack by a drive-by shooter,” the reporter’s voice came back over the speakers, “We’ve received conflicting reports on if anyone was injured. However, eye witnesses at the scene claim to have seen blood. We’re going live to the scene – Jessica?”

The video shifted from inside the news studio to a woman in a beige pants suit, standing outside a large crowd that seemed to have gathered in front of Queen Consolidated. The woman shifted her suit jacket, bringing the microphone up to her mouth, “Thank you, Katie. I’m here, live, in front of Queen Consolidated. As you can see, the area is very crowded, and the police have blocked off the area. However, we were able to get a close look at the emergency vehicles. Moira Queen and Paul Copani were both taken to Starling City General, and we’re hearing that Copani is in at least critical condition – although some are saying he might have been dead on the scene.”

Jessica turned to a chubby blond man standing next to her, “This is Tyler Jimsen, a witness on the shooting. Tyler, can you tell us what happened?”

The guy looked like he was about to faint as he nodded and began talking into the microphone – a little too close and causing puffs of air to hit the mic too loud, “I was just walking to get a cup of coffee and all of a sudden this person on a motorcycle drove up onto the sidewalk and shot at the two people in front of the building.”

“The person was on a motorcycle?” Jessica questioned, “What did they look like?”

“I don’t know,” flustered the man, “he was all dressed up in black and it all happened really fast. Anyway, Oliver Queen ran up to go see if his mom was okay-”

“Wait wait wait, Oliver Queen was at the scene?” Jessica asked, shoving her mic impossibly closer to Tyler’s face, “Where did he go?”

Felicity gulped at the mention of Oliver, her breath catching in her chest.

“I don’t know. He took off running,” Tyler said with a shrug.

Jessica pulled away from him, back to facing the camera, “This is Jessica Hereda, live in front of Queen Consolidated. Back to you, George.”

The camera switched back to the news room, with George holding a hand to his ear and listening closely, before nodding at the camera, “The police have just announced that Paul Copani has passed away from his injuries. Moira Queen is in Starling City General with minor injuries. We will continue to bring you updates as this story develops. For now – let’s get back to sports. John, how are the Starling City Beavers doing?”

Felicity turned the TV off, looking at her reflection in the black screen and trying to remember how to breathe again.

This was how it started. This was the start of the Huntress.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, follow me on tumblr at angelaandmels.tumblr.com. I post updates about my writing, sneak peeks of new chapters, and reblog a lot of gifs and stuff. My ask box is open and I'm very happy to receive messages or prompts on there.
> 
> Please do send prompts! When I'm stuck on a chapter of Infinity, getting my creative juices flowing with something else is a great way to get me back on track.
> 
> Please leave comments on how you feel about the chapter and if my characterization is still feeling okay. I had a hard time getting Felicity's "voice" seeing as she doesn't do a whole lot of talking in this chapter.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	9. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felicity struggles with the introduction of the Huntress.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter! Yay! A bit longer than last time.

Panic. That was the only thing she could feel. She looked down at her hand, one holding the remote, the other curled into a fist. She was starting to feel light headed. Was she breathing? She took in a large gulp of air and felt an iota better, and with her exhale felt two iotas worse. Her eyes refocused on the reporter with his brunet comb over, talking about hockey, but she saw the dreaded black dots enter her field of vision.

God, she really needed to see a doctor if she was going to be fainting all the time, she thought, before crumbling to the floor.

Only thirty seconds probably passed before she jolted awake, gasping. Her arms flailed out, making sure they weren’t tied to an overturned chair. She covered her face. Helena Bertinelli. Of course. How could she forget the jealous psychopath who practically salivated at the idea of patricide?

Of course, her dad was… well, is a total douche. Killing your daughter’s fiancé because he was a good guy was the worst thing a father could really do to one of his children.

That being said, Helena managed to maintain her batshit crazy status.

Still sprawled on the floor, she counted the carpet fibers and hummed to herself. What was Helena’s father’s name again? It was really stereotypically Italian. She drummed her fingers on the floor.

She could probably stand to get up.

“I forgot how quickly Starling City went to crap,” Felicity muttered to herself, peeling her body off of the carpet and brushing her hands on her pajama bottoms. The TV was still going, and she decided to leave it that was. It would make for some nice background noise.

She smiled softly at the nostalgic memories of working in the Foundry, the booming music and hums of the air compressors.

But instead she had the news reporters and Hyundai commercials to keep her comfy as she curled up on the couch, her laptop on her lap and fingers tapping a quick staccato against the keys.

The first thing she did was a quick search of Paul Copani. The first thing that popped up was pages and pages of every newspaper frantically posting articles of the shooting. But then, deep in the depths of Google (page 7), she finds what she’d been looking for.

_Copani Joins Bertinelli Industries_

It’s nothing more than a quick press release by the company, but at the end, a glowing statement from Mister Frank Bertinelli himself.

She huffs a laugh. Yes, very Italian.

_“Don’t move,”_ the memory of Helena’s voice send shivers down her spine and she slowly closes her computer. _“Tell me where my father is, or I_ will _kill you.”_

Felicity gulped down another lungful or air and placed her laptop on the couch cushion next to her. She really needed to… go shopping. Yeah. Her cupboards were looking a little empty. Not that they were ever full to begin with. She wasn’t much of a cook. Not that she was a bad cook or anything, just that cooking took a lot of effort and she spent a lot of late nights at Queen Consolidated. Of course, now, she was unemployed. She could start her cooking career, if she really wanted to. Which she didn’t. Cooking wasn’t something she felt like doing for money. It was more for fun. And…

“Oh my God I need to get outside. I’m starting to ramble to myself.”

* * *

 

Oliver Queen had exactly no reason to be in a Walmart. If Felicity was being honest, she didn’t have much a reason either. She tended to go to the local market, in which she hoped the amount of local produce she bought might counteract her horrific amounts of electric consumption.

But in a fit of laziness she parked her little Mini in front of the big box store, and halfway down the noodle aisle pondering over angel hair pasta and regular-width pasta and if she really needed whole wheat, Oliver turned a corner and locked eyes with her.

She tried to back away but the wheel on her cart held fast and let out a terrible, groaning screech. She winced, looked back up at Oliver as he stalked towards her, winced again, and contemplated leaving her groceries behind and making a run for it. Her hands actually lifted off the handle before he was in her personal space and any attempts to run away would’ve been futile.

“Felicity, I think we need to talk,” his voice was friendly enough, but the corners of his smile were tense, a dead giveaway that if he could solve this problem by punching things instead of talking, he’d do it in a heartbeat.

She gulped, “Um… What do we need to talk about?” He rose an eyebrow at her and she panicked, “I mean, we could talk about the weather, we could talk about your mom. I mean, not your mom. We could talk about your dad. I mean, not your dad. We could talk about Walter! Is he back in town yet? I’m not sure how much he’d like to speak to me seeing as I’m no longer an employee at Queen Consolidated but-”

“I need to protect my family, Felicity,” Oliver stopped her, “You saw what happened to my mother. I need to know why she was attacked. I need to be able to keep her safe. If you’re keeping me from keeping her safe, I don’t think I need to tell you how I’ll react.”

She let out a shuddering breath, “What?”

He smiled back at her, “I don’t need to repeat myself, Miss Smoak.”

She stood there, frozen, staring at him and trying to make her lungs work again.

“ _I’ll just give him a warning,” Oliver said, “I tend not to need to do much more. But I will if necessary.”_

Oh my God, this was the worst. She did not need to be tied by her feet, upside down, at the docks by one of her best friends and her… well, she’d been trying not to think about it since being sent back in time in the first place.

“I don’t think your mom was the target of the shooting,” she blurted out, a bit too loud. An old woman trying to grab the pesto off the top shelf faltered and looked back at the two of them. Oliver shot the woman a look that seemed to spook her, before putting his hand on Felicity’s shoulder and placing enough pressure to get her to move forward.

Despite the unspoken threats and the house invasion and the being-tied-up-in-the-Foundry, she relaxed at his touch. If he noticed, which, let’s be honest, he probably did, he didn’t say anything.

Once they were surrounded by a bunch of HDMI cords and phone chargers, he stopped and looked at her with an eyebrow raised.

She gulped and looked up and down the aisle again, “Um… The guy your mom was with-”

“Paul Copani?” Oliver interrupted.

“Yes. Well, he’s not just a business partner or anything. He’s up to the mob up to here,” she held her hand up beneath her eyes, “It was a hit on him, to affect the Bertinelli mob.”

“The Bertinellis?” Oliver’s eyes narrowed and he crossed his arms, looking over her head and at nothing. The confused but calculating look on his face was a nice change of pace from the scary and threatening looks he’d been giving her lately. Who knew the charming Oliver Queen could make a smile look terrifying? He refocused on her, “Do you know why they’re being targeted?”

She surprisingly chose her words carefully, “It’s the mob. There’s a ton of reasons why they would be under attack.”

Oliver nodded at her and she almost let out a sigh of relief. No one ever trusted her to do the truth-lies, and for good reason.

“Felicity,” Oliver said, leaning in close and lowering his voice, and despite everything she could not keep her heartbeat under control or her cheeks from heating up, “You’re no match for the mob.”

She sputtered and jerked her head away, “I never said I was!”

He tapped his index finger against his lips a few times, silently asking her to lower her voice. Then he lowered his head again, “I am. I need to be able to do my own research. That’s currently impossible. And I have a feeling my current difficulties are due to you.”

She felt a shameful blush burning her face even brighter, all of her good-reasoned anger disappearing. She felt a lot like a chastened child. She nodded her head, “I’ll… look into it.”

Oliver smiled at her, a real smile that made her heart skip a beat (although it was still going way too fast so probably not a bad thing). He started to turn to leave, and she opened her mouth without thinking.

“Oliver, wait,” she said, and when he turned around she scrambled. She couldn’t warn him about Helena – it’d be too suspicious. She stuttered a few times, before finally saying, “Good luck. If you need my help, well, you know where I live. And, probably, how to get into my bedroom.”

There were two beats of silence, “Not like that! I mean, not at all, like that. I wouldn’t want you in my bedroom that way. No offense, or anything. I’m sure you’ve slept with lots of women. And I’m going to stop talking in three, two one, yep, done talking.”

Oliver surprised her, his face no longer stone and calculated. Instead, he was looking at her with almost… fondness. “You should still avoid this type of work.”

“I can’t make any promises, Mr. Queen,” she said softly.

“Then let’s try having a bit more integrity with each other. Next time you need information, call me, don’t bug my pocket,” he said, and, in shock, she realized her was _joking_ with her.

“I… I don’t have your number,” she tripped over her words and almost hit her forehead. What a dumb thing to say! Say thank you! Say you’re grateful! Do something so you don’t look like some sort of weirdo who doesn’t know how to communicate. But instead her lips refused all of her commands and she just shrugged.

“Yes, you do,” he said, then he _winked_ at her and left her in the aisle, still fumbling around. The second her hands started working again she pulled her phone out of her purse and went to her contacts.

_Queen, Oliver._

“How did he do that?” she whispered.

* * *

 

Felicity fought back and forth with herself in the car about whether she should’ve exposed Helena in the grocery store. She fought with herself as she put away her groceries, she fought with herself as she tapped away on the computer and lifted the internet block on the Arrow Cave.

Ultimately, she figured, typing into the SCPD mainframe (9pm tends to be the “witching hour” for the mob and she figured there’d be a lot of action seeing as a high profile member was assassinated in broad daylight) that she’d made the correct call.

Telling Oliver about the Huntress would only bring more questions and suspicion towards her. And there was no evidence against her. Felicity wasn’t even sure Oliver had been to see her yet, he was still so early on the trail.

Felicity put her headphones on, scrolling her mouse wheel until the right frequency came in. The SCPD were locked onto one of their hidden mics, and from the sound of the seagulls and the footsteps, it sounded like they were listening in on the docks.

She shuddered. The docks gave her the heeby-jeebies even without all the gang activity and drugs. One time she was on the lookout with Laurel and they found a dead body and the docks hadn’t quite been the same since then.

A voice she had to guess was Bertinelli’s came over the transmission, “Thank you for coming.”

Someone was talking in another language. It sounded like… Chinese? Her eyes narrowed. That couldn’t be good.

A woman’s voice responded. The voice was so familiar, the name was on the tip of Felicity’s tongue and she screwed her eyes tight, trying to put a face to the voice, “We were not responsible for the attacks on your people.”

Her heart sunk. Of course. The Bertinellis wouldn’t take the attack sitting down. They were looking for someone to blame.

She put her hand on her forehead, “Oh my God,” she whispered. This was bad. This was really bad. This was a mob war in the making.

Bertinelli came back, “These attacks on my business – on my family’s life blood – they stop now. Or I’m coming for you.”

There was no response from the others, instead, just the sound of them walking away. Felicity gulped. Silently leaving was never a good sign.

Some other guy’s voice came over, “What does the Triad have to gain by provoking you?”

“Well, no one ever credited the Triad with rational thinking… If not them, then who? Whoever it is, when I find out who’s behind this, there will be blood,” Bertinelli responded.

Felicity cut the connection, standing up so fast her headphones held fast and jerked her head back down and her computer almost knocked off the desk. Her hands reached out to steady the tower, and she let out a shuddering breath.

The black dots were back in her vision, and she stumbled onto her bed, trying to keep her breathing under control.

“The Triad. Oh my God. This is bad, this is bad,” Felicity repeated to herself. The black dots faded in and out, and she felt dizzy.

Of course. The Triad. Yet another huge problem that she thought had already been behind her. She covered her eyes with her hands. What was the leader’s name? What was it? Didn’t she have white hair?

China White. That was it. What a huge pain in the ass.

And the main reason she’d been such a pain? Because Helena killed her mentor and it led to a bunch of people dying and a practical mob war in the streets of Starling.

All because Oliver trained Helena to be deadlier than her lust for revenge could take her herself.

“Oh my God – he’s probably sleeping with her right now!” she screeched, her hands tugging at her hair in some futile way to maybe send some bad juju through the airwaves and into Oliver’s pants to make him think rationally.

Boy, when it came to pretty girls, Oliver was as stupid as the college-dropout status implied.

Felicity stood up, reading into the glass jar that held her loose change. The black dots were almost gone, although she did sway a bit in a fit of nausea. She wasn’t sure if it was because of the confusion and feeling of impending doom caused by time travel, or the idea of Oliver kissing and sleeping with another woman.

Heads, she went down to the Foundry and laid everything on the table when it came to the Huntress, and hopefully get a solid plan together to dismantle organized crime in Starling. A lofty goal, sure, but Team Arrow had taken down a bunch of steroid-jacked supervillains.

Tails, she didn’t go down there. She’d let it all play out the way it had gone the first time. And she’d just have to swallow the consuming guilt when the news reports of people dying came on TV.

She pressed her lips together in a thin line and flipped the coin.

* * *

 

Felicity came down the steps of the Foundry just in time to see Diggle hang up the phone.

“What the-?” Diggle said, having swiveled in his chair to look at her, “We just changed the combination. How did you get in?”

“Honestly John, I’m surprised you’re surprised,” Felicity said, setting her purse down on the table next to the sitting man and flipping her ponytail over her shoulder.

_“I like it when you flip your pony,” Sara said, smiling, “It makes you look all “in charge.””_

_“I would prefer if you didn’t do the air quotes,” Felicity said, flipping her hair again with a teasing smile, “I walk the walk when it comes to being in charge.”_

_“I resent that,” Oliver said, pausing from attacking the training dummy in front of him with the ridiculously large bo staff. But he smiled at her, and the blood in her chest warmed._

“Look, Felicity, this really isn’t a good time. If you’re here about Count Vertigo, we’re already on it, but some bigger stuff has been happening,” Diggle’s voice snapped her out of her memory. She nodded.

“I know,” Felicity said, intruding on his personal space and forcing him to move away from the computers as her fingers tapped on the keyboard, “I’m here for the big stuff.” She paused and pursed her lips, side-eyeing Diggle, “Not like, ‘you guys’ for ‘big stuff.’ I mean the serious stuff. Although you guys are pretty serious too.”

“Felicity,” Diggle groaned, covering his eyes with his hand, “I really need you to get to your point before Oliver gets down here and kills the both of us.”

“Oliver confronted me in the pasta aisle and basically told me we were cool.” There was a long silence as Diggle shook his head, still not looking at her. “There’s a mob war,” she blurted out. Diggle lowered his hand from his face and cocked an eyebrow. “I mean, not right now, there isn’t a mob war. More of a mob tussle. Some fisty-cuffs? Lots of tension. And not in the sexy way, but in the, someone’s-gonna-get-killed-way.”

She raised her hands in small fists and cleared her throat when Diggle rolled his eyes, although she saw the ghost of a smile lifting the corners of his lips. “The Bertinelli gang is starting to clash with the Triad. Not that they’ve ever gotten along, but it’s coming to a head. They just had a meeting earlier tonight.”

“The Triad?” Diggle’s eyebrows shot up, “You’re saying the Triad is who shot at Oliver’s mother?”

“No,” Felicity went back to the computer screen. She closed her eyes, took a few deep breaths, fisted her hands, and opened her eyes again. She gulped, “Helena Bertinelli is the one who shot at them.”

Diggle choked, lurching forward from his leaning position and into a half-standing position, “Helena Bertinelli? Frank Bertinelli’s daughter?”

She nodded, trying to keep her face calm. It would’ve worked, had John not blurted out, “The woman he’s currently having dinner with? Oh my God, you people are crazy,” Diggle groaned, clutching his head with his hands. Muffled behind them, she heard him ask, “How do you know this?”

“I hacked into the mics that the SCPD had set up at the docks.”

“Oh my God,” Diggle repeated again, under his breath, “You do realize you’re going to get yourself killed right? Spying on the mob by hacking into the police computers _and_ ticking off the vigilante. You’re not making any friends.”

“I have you, don’t I, John?” Felicity asked, a little jokingly but a bit serious. Her teasing smile faltered a bit. John in the future was practically family.

Diggle sighed, “Really Felicity, I think you should leave. And that’s not exactly my choice, it’s more of me protecting you from the guy who currently owns this hideout.”

“Did Oliver really not let you sign the lease on the Arrow Cave?”

“The Arrow Cave?” Diggle said, incredulous. But he couldn’t help the smile that crept onto his face. She latched onto the grin and bulldozed forward.

“Diggle, Helena’s actions with Oliver could lead to this entire city being overrun by a mob war of Chicago proportions. I do not want hyped up Italians and drug-running Chinese running through the streets of the Glades trying to kill each other. Innocent people could be killed. And, I’ll be honest, I don’t trust Oliver’s judgement to make the right decision.”

“Why? Because he doesn’t trust you?”

She didn’t reply, instead pressing her lips tightly together.

Diggle finally let out a long sigh and looked like he immediately aged five years, “Fine, fine. I’ll go make some coffee.”

* * *

 

There were soft beeps from the head of the staircase and Felicity’s heart beat into her throat. She gripped the cup of coffee in her hands and closed her breath, trying to calm down. Seeing Oliver used to be such a relaxing thing. When he came into the Foundry, it meant he was safe, it meant he was alive, even if the mission didn’t go well. But now, she realized, when she opened her eyes and a shocked Oliver, halfway down the stairs, looked at her, that he scared her.

Oliver scared her.

“Felicity?” Oliver’s face scrunched up before he turned to the other man in the room, “Diggle, what is she doing down here? I don’t have time for this,” he turned his attention towards her and pointed at her chest, “I told you to call, first.”

“You do have the time for this, Oliver. Felicity’s been looking into it, and that woman, Helena Bertinelli, she’s really dangerous,” Diggle replied, and he gave her a short look. She felt herself relax just a fraction. Diggle. Diggle was never scary.

Oliver had walked down the rest of the stairs and was about to hang up his bow until Diggle’s words made him freeze in place. He gulped visibly.

“What’s wrong, Oliver? You don’t think the daughter of a mob boss might not be the sweet and innocent woman she makes herself out to be? Because I can guarantee you, everyone in Starling City doesn’t think _you_ could be the-”

Oliver cut him off, “When the mob came for their protection money, it wasn’t just me fighting them. There was someone else there.”

Felicity looked up, her lips parted in shock. Already? He found out she was the Huntress after one dinner?

_And he still helped her?!_

“I don’t understand,” Diggle said.

“It means Helena was there when the mob came to shake down the owner,” Felicity said, her voice somehow calm. Oliver’s eyes locked with hers, but she didn’t back down. Her fear for him was becoming overwhelmed by anger.

“Why would she attack her family?” Diggle asked.

“She must have her reasons,” Oliver started at the same time Felicity said, “Because she’s crazy,” and Felicity covered her face with her hands. Agitated, Oliver turned to her, “What? What the Hell do you possibly have to say? Why do you keep digging into this stuff? You have no idea how this works. You’re just an IT girl.”

Felicity pulled her hand away from her face with an offended expression, “Excuse me? Maybe I’d like to point out that just because she has boobs doesn’t mean that her reasons are substantial.”

“Oh, I could say the same thing about you,” Oliver gritted through his teeth. She reeled back and started to say something back when Diggle interrupted.

“Oliver, are you starting to fall for this girl? Because she’s the bad guy out there. Don’t get it confused – she’s a _killer_. And whatever’s going on in your head, you better get it straight, man.”

Felicity scoffed again, “Yeah, it’s his _head_ that’s doing all the thinking here.” Jealousy ripped through her veins, no matter how much she wanted to just be angry at his stupidity.

Oliver rolled his eyes and held his hands out, “Any other opinions from the peanut gallery? Anything helpful? Or are you just here to judge?” he asked, glaring.

“No, I have something helpful to offer,” Felicity said, looking at her nails before glaring at him, “You just better hope no super villains learn that your one weakness is a pretty girl dressed in leather. There’s more of them than you might think. And starting a mob war is more dangerous and important than whatever revenge she’s looking to put into place.”

“Revenge?” Diggle asked, but Oliver’s noise of annoyance overrode the question.

“I want you out of here,” Oliver ordered, followed by an, “I know what I’m doing,” before leaving the other two people behind as he walked towards the stairs.

“Where are you going?” Diggle called after him.

“To get some answers!” Oliver yelled back, and the door closed with a loud slam behind him.

Diggle sighed, and then fixed his sights on the blonde standing across from him.

She raised her hands in a shrugging motion, “What?”

He pinched the bridge of his nose, “I did not sign up for this.”

“Me neither,” she murmured under her breath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, follow me on angelaandmels.tumblr.com for updates and previews on coming chapters. Feel free to send me comments or questions (I love them) and please comment on the chapter to tell me how you're feeling.
> 
> This chapter had a lot more dialogue, which is super great because lately it's been a lot of internal monologues and I wasn't sure how well they were characterizing Felicity. Thanks for reading!


	10. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Helena threatens the safety of Starling City.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know, it's beena super long time. Would you believe me if I said it was crippling writer's block, the fact I'm potty training a three year old, I was working 40 hours a week in a job that had no air conditioning and forced me to wear a corset, and that I moved and transfered universities?
> 
> No?
> 
> Well I actually had a lot of difficulty writing this chapter. Anyway, I really hope you like it. Sorry for the wait.

Oliver was gone for forty-five minutes before Felicity pulled out her (new and expensive..! but she’d charged it to Oliver’s account) tablet from her bag and logged into the tracker that she’d placed in the soles of his extra pair of shoes. Diggle raised an eyebrow at her when the GPS marker pinged on the screen.

 “Really Diggle,” Felicity said in a defensive tone, digging in her bag again and pulling out a diminutive chip, “you should have one in your shoes as well. It’s a safety measure.”

“I’ll think about it,” he said, but winced and held up his hand up to keep her from moving closer when she shifted her weight.

From what the map said, it indicated that Oliver was at a St. George’s Cemetery. She brought the tablet closer to her face, “He’s at a graveyard? What would he be doing there?”

She saw Diggle shrug in her peripheral vision, but he didn’t offer any insight.

Her stomach twisted uncomfortably. The Oliver she knew wouldn’t hook up with a woman in a graveyard. But who knew what was up with Oliver pre-Felicity? She closed her eyes and let out a steady exhale. The jealousy bubbled up in her gut.

Him and Helena were an item. At least, at one point they were. They would be. And she was going to have to just grit her teeth and bear it.

Unless, of course, she managed to convince him she was a crazy murderer – _and_ not dating material.

“Why are you so hung up over Helena? I saw you when you first told me about her – you looked terrified. Did you have a run-in with her earlier?” Diggle paused for a second, then cocked an eyebrow, “Are _you_ in the mob?”

“What?” Felicity said, scrunching her face. The question was enough to get her to tear her eyes away from the tablet, “I can’t even keep it a secret that I knew Oliver was the Arrow – you think I could be a part of organized crime?”

Diggle pursed his lips and nodded to himself, looking away. Felicity stared back at the tablet.

Of course, she couldn’t let it rest like that.

“I mean, I can keep a secret. Like, no one knows about my college roommate getting herpes from that weird guy at the music festival she went to. I’ve kept that a secret for _years_.”

The corner of Diggle’s mouth started to turn up.

“I mean, except you. And I can keep my mouth shut about you and Oliver being vigilantes. That’s no problem. So, now that I think about it, I probably could be in the mob.” She tapped a pen against her bottom lip.

Diggle coughed a laugh, “Yeah, now that I think about it – you don’t seem like you’d be a good fit.”

A beep alerted on the tablet, bringing their attention back to the screen.

“What is it?” John asked.

“Oliver’s moving at a fast speed. He must’ve gotten back on his motorcycle.” She zoomed out on the screen, “But… He’s not going home. And he’s not heading here…” She drifted off, her eyebrows scrunching.

“Could he be going back to Bertinelli’s place?”

Felicity pressed her lips together and took a deep breath, fighting down a wave of uncomfortable nausea. “Maybe.”

“Then maybe we need to let it be, Felicity,” Diggle said softly, taking the tablet out of her hands, “Oliver may be acting like an idiot, but he’s an idiot who survived five years on an isolated island. I think he can handle wherever he is.”

Felicity couldn’t help but think he could see right through her coping techniques (she had developed a lot of them) and right into her jealous and hurt core. She only nodded in response, grabbing her purse and fishing through it to get her keys.

“I’ll see you around, John,” she said climbing up the stairs.

“Get some sleep, Smoak!” he called after her, right before the door closed. It brought a hint of a smile to her lips.

\---

Felicity tossed and turned all night, unable to close her eyes for very long without thinking of Oliver’s hands on someone else’s body.

It was like all of her broken hearts from middle school, high school, and college all mixed into one. By the time the sun rose again, she’d barely slept, and had dark circles under her eyes which she didn’t even try to cover up.

It didn’t matter, she thought, pitifully looking at herself in the mirror, no one wanted to see her anyway.

She languished around the living room trying to fend off her existential crisis by flipping between channels, eating a bag of potato chips (and wearily running around the blocks a few times in guilt) until the sun started to set. She tried to take a nap several times but the butterflies in her stomach kept her awake instead.

When the sun finally dipped down, she gathered her electronics and headed towards the Foundry. Only Diggle was there when she showed up, and he gave her a confused shrug when she asked where Oliver was.

She reached towards her bag, but the tablet had just been switched on when Oliver staggered down the steps of the Foundry, looked mussed up and bewildered. Something about his posture triggered Felicity’s concern.

“What happened?” Felicity asked, and Oliver covered his face in response.

“Diggle, I cannot deal with her right now.”

She blew off the comment (and was pleased that Diggle seemed to do the same), “What happened?”

Oliver tried a different tactic, ignoring her and putting things away. An alert sounded on the computer, and she heard the wheels of the computer chair on the floor as Diggle slid over.

“Looks like there’s been a shooting on the west side. Want to go check it out?” Diggle asked, looking over to where Oliver stood, now rigid in irritation.

“No, that won’t be necessary.”

“Look, Oliver, the Triad and Bertinelli’s crew are getting more and more agitated. What if they’ve started already?” Diggle insisted, but Oliver just got more and more tense with each word.

“You were already there,” Felicity murmured, and Oliver’s face snapped towards her direction.

“Why are you still here?!” he yelled, loud enough to make her jump, “How many times do I have to te-”

Diggle cut him off, “Don’t start with that scary vigilante bullshit. We don’t have the time. What the hell is going on?”

At the scolding Oliver squared up, and for a second, it looked like he was about to leave again, before his shoulders fell and he picked up a bo staff. He walked over to one of the training dummies and sighed, “I was there already. With Helena.”

He hit the dummy five or six times before both Diggle and Felicity were out of their seats, flinging questions at him.

“Why were you with her?”

“Why was she there?”

“Why were they shooting?”

“Who were you guys attacking?”

Oliver kept hitting the dummy before dropping the staff on the floor and making some fists, throwing punches at a second dummy.

“Helena was shooting at the Triad.”

Felicity covered her face with her hands and listened to the thumps of Oliver’s punches hit the dummy. Oh God, this was the worst.

“Why?” Diggle asked.

“To start a war between the gangs.”

“Well why the Hell didn’t you put an arrow in her, then?”

“Look, she’s not like that,” Oliver said, somehow calm, and when Felicity removed her hands from her face, Diggle looked like his jaw was going to fall off. Oliver was upside down against a wall, looking rather zen for a man in both a handstand and an argument.

“Not like what?! You just said she was trying to start a gang war..!” Diggle practically choked on his disbelief.

Honestly, if Felicity hadn’t known past-Oliver to be this stupid, she would’ve gawked too.

“This woman is a killer! She’s been dropping bodies all over the city!” Diggle yelled, looking like he was about to rip hair out if he had any.

“She’s not what you think she is. Three years ago she was going to turn in her father to the FBI. She put everything she had on it onto her laptop. Her father found it, thought it belonged to her fiancé, and had him murdered.”

There was silence in the Foundry as Diggle and Felicity looked at each other. Oliver dropped out of his handstand and went to the salmon ladder.

“Alright, listen, that’s a heavy thing, man,” Diggle murmured, his voice calming over Oliver’s heavy breaths, “But it doesn’t change the fact that she _is_ dangerous. And if Bertinelli retaliates against the Triad _or is perceived to_ the Triad is going to rain down Hell and innocent people are going to be killed.”

Oliver pulled himself up on the bar, balancing with his arms locked, “She’s lost, Diggle,” he said, struggling to keep his body still, “And whether she knows it or not, I can save her – stop her from doing anything reckless.”

Felicity scoffed, interrupting whatever Diggle was about to say. He raised his eyebrow at her, and even though his body was stiff as a board, she could almost see Oliver’s shoulders fall in anticipation of what she was going to say.

“Oliver, I don’t think you’re the type of person who can fix this. She needs a grief counselor or a psychologist or something,” she said (he could sure use one too) “but you don’t have the skills to do that. The only skills you have are ones related to being a vigilante, and at the end of the day, you’re only going to make things worse with her, and with possibly a mafia war in the streets of Starling.”

Oliver swung down before bringing himself back up on top of the bar, and he shook his head.

Oh my God – he was infuriating! She walked around to the other side of the ladder so she could see his face, which looked less than pleased at seeing her.

“Okay, I was being nice, earlier, but I’m taking off the kid gloves now,” she said to Oliver’s eye roll, “That lady is fucking nuts. You should’ve realized that the second she said ‘sometimes revenge is justice’ with a straight face.”

Oliver dropped from the bar and stepped way too close into her personal space. She took a glance at his neck and noticed a small purple mark, and it only incensed her anger.

Him rolling his eyes only made it worse, and her brain fogged up with so much rage she didn’t hear what he said.

She opened her mouth to reply with something but the anger stopped up her throat and she only managed to twist her mouth into some sort of shape, fist her hands, and stomp her foot.

God – she’d had a speech and everything all thought out in the car.

Oliver didn’t make any response to her childish posturing and turned, grabbing his bow off the stand, “I’m going out and making sure everything stays civil between the mobs. You,” he pointed at Felicity, “Need to stop putting trackers in my things.” He took the chip from his shoes out of his jacket pocket and threw it on the floor. “Felicity,” he said sarcastically, “You need to mind your own business.”

Felicity stood there, cemented to the floor while he left.

There was nothing to really do as her and Diggle sat in the Foundry, occasionally checking her tablet to see how things were doing (“Really Diggle,” she said, tapping around on the screen, “when I’m not in a rush, my tracking chips are impossible to find. It’s a security measure. The one he pulled out was just a dummy.”

Diggle pulled off his shoes to scrutinize the soles, before slowly looking up at her.

“See?” she said, with a wink, “Impossible.”)

But after a few hours with only a few short transmissions of, “All’s clear,” Felicity packed up and went home.

\---

Trying to get her mind off of everything, she spent the next morning and afternoon switching tabs back and forth between updating her resume, looking at youtube, half-heartedly doing a few crunches, and muttering about idiotic archers who thought only with their leather-encased groins.

This time her exhaustion _did_ get to her, and she woke with a start on the couch to find her apartment completely dark, except for the TV, which was playing a documentary of zebras or some other striped, horse-like animal.

She groaned, wriggling her phone from underneath her and checking the time.

The brightness practically blinded her, but after rubbing her eyes she came to the conclusion that it was just past nine.

She groaned again and sat up. Her body wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep and try to catch up on the many, many nights of lost sleep.

Fuck Oliver. He could figure out the Huntress thing on his own. He did it the first time.

Somehow, though, from the walk from her couch to her bedroom, her mind changed. Her gut clenched. She wrinkled her face. Something didn’t feel right.

Well, something felt even less-right than the whole, oh, being back in time and dealing with an idiot who insisted on sleeping with every female antagonist that he could come across, consistently missing the big picture, and…

And…

That was probably good enough reason to at least check in.

\---

“What is that noise?” she heard Oliver say as she walked down the stairs.

“I don’t know,” Diggle responded, “I think it’s an alert that Felicity made.”

Tapping on the keyboard, “Why did you let her change things on the computer?”

“She looked like she knew what she was doing.”

“What’s going on?” Felicity asked, and the men spun around to look at her.

“There’s this-” Diggle started, but an annoying chirping noise came from the computer.

Dread filled her veins.

That was the “serious shit is going down” alert.

The entire room went silent, with Oliver barely managing to get out of her way before she rushed forward, her fingers flying over the keys. It was a stream from the SCPD. The computer must’ve heard some key words.

“What could’ve possibly happened?” she groaned softly, pulling the headphones over her ears.

From what she could make out over the chaos that seemed to be going on, there’d been a shooting.

“I’m not going over there without any back-up,” a voice from a police car radio came in, “that place is crawling with Triad. They’ll shoot me on site if they’re riled up enough.”

A dispatcher agreed and an “All units to Xi Sha Shipping Warehouse” came over the transmission. She shut it off, tearing her headphones off and pulling up the satellite maps.

“What’s going on?” Oliver asked, and she had to admit, if she wasn’t panicking, she would’ve enjoyed the respite from the constant insistence that she leave the Foundry.

“There’s been a shooting at a well-known Triad warehouse. The department’s sending out all units. If we want to get there, we have to leave now.”

“What do you mean, _we_?”

“We don’t have time,” Diggle interrupted, “We need to go.”

“We can’t take her, Diggle, it’s too dangerous. The Triad doesn’t show restraint against blondes.”

“Actually, I dye it,” she said, tugging a bit anxiously on her ponytail and gathering things up in her bag, “And because you’re so stubborn about letting me update this place, I’m going to have no way of communicating with the two of you. You’ll be in more danger by not letting me go than I will be if I go.”

Oliver opened his mouth to object but Diggle was already leading Felicity out the door.

“No time! Get your bow! Or, maybe if you’re not insane, a goddamn gun.”

Felicity hid her giddy smile behind her tablet.

\---

The smile disappeared when Oliver’s voice came over the radio, “Zhishan’s dead.”

“Who’s that?” Felicity radioed back. Oliver’s will had been strong and she was now stuck, a few blocks away, in an alley in the van while Diggle and Oliver scoped out the scene.

Police sirens had initialing been blaring all around her but had suddenly quieted up. From what she’d overheard from the police scanners, they’d decided to investigate as quietly as possible to try not to alert every gang member in the area.

There was a pause before she heard the click of her radio, “Leader of the Triad.”

She groaned, “Who did it?”

“The M.O. looks very Bertinelli,” Oliver’s voice was hesitant.

“Helena did it?” she responded.

There was another pause, and honestly, that was all the confirmation she needed. She thumped her hand against her head. Oh boy was this just everything she needed.

The worst part was she felt very-much blind. This hadn’t happened in the original timeline, had it? She certainly didn’t _remember_ a full-blown gang war. And you’d think that’d make an impression.

Felicity chewed her lip. Had she done something wrong to cause this? Had out-ing herself and becoming part of the team so early really the catalyst that was going to cause a war in the streets and the deaths of numerous civilians?

She rubbed her temples. What was she going to do?

The doors of the van opened and Felicity scrambled for her gun. The gun that 2012-Felicity absolutely had no business dealing with and the gun future-Felicity kind-of had a basic understanding of but had absolutely no business touching the trigger of.

“Calm down, Felicity, it’s just us. We need to get out of here, quick,” Diggle said, climbing into the driver’s seat. Oliver followed, looking all sorts of grim.

“Where are we going?”

“Somewhere other than here,” Oliver said, settling in the back next to her where no cars driving by could see his hood, “This place is going to be more than dangerous in a few minutes.”

“What’s going to happen?” Felicity trembled. This was the first time in a while she had no idea what was going to transpire, and it was not a good feeling.

Oliver and Diggle didn’t know either, by the looks on their faces. Oliver changed the subject.

“Check the police scanner – keep us updated.”

Usually being given a task calmed her down, but in putting on her headphones all she heard was chaos and yelling and she cut the connection, “They don’t know what’s going on. But I’m getting the gist that they want to get some riot gear distributed ASAP.”

“What do you want to do, Oliver? This is going to be bad by sunrise if we don’t have a plan,” Diggle’s voice sounded strained. Felicity’s stomach twisted.

“Look, I… I just need some time to th-”

_Can’t you hear the boom-ba-doom boom boom-ba-doom boom bass? He got that super ba-_

Felicity fumbled to reach her phone, stuck in her jeans. She cursed as Nicki Minaj kept playing. Damn her and her 2012 ringtone.

“Really?” Oliver said, suddenly focusing on her way too closely with an eyebrow cocked, “Fielding calls in the middle of a mob war? Can’t you just keep it on _vibrate_?”

She shh-ed him and fought down her blush, bringing the phone to her ear and managing to nearly-drop it only once, “I uh... Hello?”

“Hello, Ms. Smoak?” a familiar voice on the other end said. Felicity’s eyebrows pulled in in confusion, “Yes, this is her.”

“Hi, this is Rebecca Klein. I’m Mr. Steele’s executive assistant. Do you have a minute?”

“Um, yeah,” she replied, leaning back from the two men, one of which was looking agitated and the other was Diggle. “What do you need?”

“Mr. Steele has requested a meeting with you. When would you next be free?”

“I uh, I’m free all week. Any time.”

“Alright. How is tonight in three hours?”

Felicity balked, “Three hours?” She checked the clock on the screen, “You want me to come in at one in the morning?”

“Yes, Ms. Smoak,” the secretary’s voice came over the receiver, “He’s asked for a late evening appointment. He’s quite busy during the work day, seeing as he’s been in Australia for the past few weeks. I’m sure you understand.”

“Sure, sure. Thank you. I’ll be there,” Felicity replied, before ending the call. She looked up to Oliver staring at her, his eyes wide in exasperation. “Anyway – back to the Triad.”

“Are you serious?” Oliver practically blew up, “Did you just set up a _date_ while a war is about to blow up on the streets of the city?”

Felicity gasped, “Oh, excuse me! I didn’t realize you’re only allowed to have a love life if the person you’re sleeping with is dressed in leather and riding their motocycles around!”

There was a brief pause before Felicity’s words caught up with her head.

“I mean, not saying that I would have to sleep with you.” She paused for a beat. “Or Helena.” She shook her head, “What am I talking about? It’s with Walter.”

Oliver actually got red in the face, his voice raised to an inappropriate level in a vehicle, “You’re sleeping with Walter?!”

“No!” she yelled, holding her hands out, “No! No way. I wouldn’t want to sleep with Walter. Not that like, he’s a bad choice or anything. In fact, your mother chose him. He’s actually quite the catch.” She cleared her throat, “But he’s not my type.”

“Then why are you seeing him?” Diggle interjected, and even though he was out of eye-sight, she could practically hear his grin.

“I don’t know,” she said, looking at her phone, “his EA called. Probably going to ask why he came back from Down Under to find out that his best IT girl has been fired.”

Oliver just covered his face with his hands for a few seconds, “Why did you agree to see him tonight? You do realize bigger things than _your job_ are happening right now.”

Diggle, thank heavens, interjected, “What exactly are we planning to do about those _bigger things_ right now?”

Oliver pressed his lips together and tensed his jaw, looking at the other side of the van before nodding, “The Bertinellis are going to be receiving a visit from the bulk of the Triad, probably within the hour, depending on when word got out that Zhishan was murdered.”

“Where’s Bertinelli’s house?” Diggle asked, as Felicity pulled up the location on her tablet and found the directions.

She gulped and looked up at the two men, but only Oliver’s blue eyes looked back at her.

“Forty minutes away. Take a left at the next stop sign.”

Diggle looked at the rearview mirror, “Felicity, you can’t come with us. I know I was on your side before, but that was before I knew how big this was going to be. This is going to be warfare. We can’t keep you safe.”

“She’ll have to come,” Oliver’s jaw tightened and Felicity looked at him in surprise, “There’s no other way to be there before it all completely goes to Hell. We can’t get her back to the Foundry in time.” He scratched his neck and looked at her, “I know you’re stubborn and… You’re usually right, but I need you to do what I tell you when we get there, alright?”

Her heart pounded in her chest and blood rushed in her ears so loud she almost couldn’t hear him. But she nodded.

\---

Diggle took a barely-visible road through the back of the Bartinelli Estate, before pulling to park near a small batch of trees. Oliver and Diggle jumped out, with Oliver pulling Felicity’s arm.

“What? Why am I coming along? Isn’t this dangerous?” It seemed like such an idiotic thing to say, what with the machine gun fire and yelling in the background.

“You’ll be too obvious hiding in a van,” Oliver said, pulling her up a small hill and down to a line of bushes, “Hide behind these.”

Her mouth fell open, “You want me to hide behind a bunch of bushes? Those won’t protect me from being shot! I’d have a better chance climbing up in one of those trees!”

“Felicity,” Oliver’s voice was stern and surreally calm compared to the panic rising in her own chest, “You said you’d listen to me. Now listen to me.”

He didn’t even check to see that she was following his orders when his hand tightened around his bow and he bounded off, towards the mansion and the fighting and the death.

It took a few seconds, but she somehow managed to get herself into the brush and hopefully hidden well enough that a few guys-with-deadly-weapons running by might not give her a second glance.

It felt like she was hiding for a long time, but she also felt all sorts of unprepared when she heard footsteps coming her way. She shrugged up into herself, trying to be as small as possible.

Wow, could this day get any worse? An entire estate, and Frank Bertinelli was running right towards the bushes she was hiding in, and shoved to the ground by his daughter right in whispering distance.

As if anyone could whisper with all the machine gun fire in the background.

“Helena!” Frank said through his heavy breathing, crawling backwards and away from his leather-clad, crossbow-wielding daughter, “What is this?” he asked.

“Payback. For Michael.”

Helena’s voice made Felicity shudder.

“I know you had him killed. Salvati told me.”

“I did that to protect the family!” Frank yelled, but Helena just pushed forward.

“I had to take everything away from you because you took _everything_ away from me. You’ll finally know what it feels like… To find out that your own blood is responsible for the death of your entire world.”

Helena’s finger twitched on the trigger, and somehow, Felicity spurred into action. Her legs bunched underneath her in a leap frog position and (without thinking or else she’d realize she was absolutely crazy) she jumped. Helena got the breath knocked out of her chest as Felicity’s body collided with hers, sending both of them to the ground and Helena’s crossbow thumping away in the grass.

Helena wasn’t surprised for long. Future Felicity, well, future-Felicity had received a great bit of grappling practice with Sara and Laurel, weight lifting with Roy, sparring practice with Diggle, and had finally been able to do a plank for an entire minute.

2012-Felicity? 2012-Felicity hadn’t exercised on a regular basis since sophomore year of high school, and while all the knowledge of wrestling and fighting was in her head, it was very theoretical, and her body and muscles were weak.

This was proven by the fact that despite the disadvantage of being surprised and initially underneath Felicity, Helena had managed to straddle her, and was trying to force a dart from her crossbow through her neck.

Felicity’s hands and arms shook as she held Helena’s arm back, but second by second her body was losing the battle, and the arrowhead came closer and closer to her jugular.

Helena was, of all things to do right before killing a stranger, was smiling, her dark raspberry lips in a gruesome grin and Felicity did _not_ want to die looking at the face of a maniacal killer.

There was a whir in the air and a jerk, and suddenly Helena’s grip loosened and Felicity flung the woman off, scrambling into a standing position to look at a bewildered archer, his hood still up, looking back at her.

Oliver ran up, holding her shoulders so tightly it felt like his fingers would bruise the skin, “Felicity? What the hell were you doing? I told you to stay hidden!” He was yelling, but his eyes, even behind all the grease paint, showed nothing but relief.

“Oliver, what are you doing? You have to stop Helena before she-”

Oliver finally let go of her and she immediately turned around.

Helena laid there, eyes open and lifeless, an arrow sticking out of her back and straight into her heart.

Oh boy, here came the vomiting.

\---

At 01:00:02 am Felicity stumbled into the office with the most convincing smile she could manage on her face, hoping to god she didn’t smell like death, murder, and family secrets, “H-how was your trip to Australia? I’ve always wanted to go. Goin’ ‘down under.’ It’s just…” she paused, “I have this thing about kangaroos. More of a phobia, they wig me out. My friends tried to do some sort of exposure therapy,” she flashed back to Sara holding her down and making her watch Kangaroo Jack, “but I still have, kind of a, uh…”

She trailed off at the serious and exasperated look Walter was giving the paper weight on his desk and cleared her throat.

“Tell me, Miss Smoak, why is it that when I came back to Starling I went to call your number and found that you’d been terminated?” Walter said, his steady gaze anchoring her.

That should’ve been the first lie she thought of when the secretary called. She clenched her hands together in a way she hoped looked casual, “I uh… Wasn’t told, actually. Just sort of… Got a phone call.” She flailed her hands wildly before finally managing to force them down at her sides.

“Well I looked into it,” Walter said, straightening himself up and pointing to the phone, “I’ve called around, and apparently there was no real reason for terminating your employment. The best I can get out of anyone is that it came from ‘upstairs.’ Do you know where ‘upstairs’ is, Miss Smoak?”

Felicity pursed her lips and looked out the window, where the lights of Starling glittered from eighty stories below. She pointed at the floor, “Here?”

“Exactly,” he said, “You’ve been rehired. If you’d like, go ahead and pick up your badge back at the front office tomorrow morning.”

Felicity briefly pondered asking for a raise before sweeping it under the rug, “Um, sir, why is it you wanted to contact me in the first place?”

Walter steepled his hands and tapped the fingers against his lips, “I was wondering what might have happened to you because of that foolish quest I put you on earlier. Just hoping you didn’t get into anything too serious.”

“Well,” Felicity shrugged her shoulders and swallowed, “I did keep looking into it. Um, Tempest goes a-”

Walter cut her off and expertly avoided contact, “I appreciate your diligence, but it turns out the discrepancy was just a misunderstanding between my wife and I. Everything has been resolved.”

Felicity pressed her lips together, “Mr. Steele, Tempest is causing more attention than you may be aware of.” She paused, collecting her thoughts. The first time she’d tracked the money, she’d been so unaware of what she was looking for that it put blinders on her vision. It’d taken later snooping to really realize the gravity of the breadcrumbs she’d been coming across. The second time, everything had been easier.

“The money your wife withdrew from the company – I wasn’t the only one tracking it. She was being shadowed by another entity – and whoever it was, they’re good. I was only able to find one thing linking back to that person. It was an image – it’s probably still on my work computer. I’ll go print it out-”

“Miss Smoak,” Walter said, raising himself out of his chair and towering over her, “I would appreciate if you no longer pried into my wife’s personal business. If I need your assistance, I will ask for it directly and specifically.”

Perhaps, on a regular day, Felicity would push. But it wasn’t. So she nodded stiffly, “Yes, absolutely.” She turned on her heel and left, quickly making her way out of the office.

That night, before passing out in exhaustion, an alert sounded on her phone. Very, very briefly scanning it, she saw someone had looked through her work computer and downloaded an image. She could only hope it was the right guy who did it.

\---

Felicity took a few days off from the Foundry. Getting back into the thick of things, while it was what she wanted, was definitely a shock to her system. She went into work the next Monday, to the cheers and celebration of her co-workers (they got her a cupcake and a card like she’d been in the hospital for a surgery, and to be fair her body was bruised and sore as if she had been, but she appreciated the gesture).

On Thursday, she walked back into her office from the bathroom and saw Oliver sitting in her chair, his lips pressed against his nails. He looked up when she entered.

“Miss Smoak! I wanted to talk to you about something!”

The shift from the Hood that she’d been seeing the past few weeks into the amicable and charming Oliver Queen threw her off balance.

So much so that, instead of playing along, she stuttered a, “Wh-what?”

Oliver rolled with it, “I assume you’ve gotten word that I’m looking into developing a night club at my father’s old factory.”

She grimaced a fake smile, her eyebrows showing her confusion at the statement. Was he going to show her the Foundry? Didn’t she already know it was there? “Um, yes, I think I’ve heard of that.”

“Well,” Oliver said, that fake, polite voice still going, “I need an IT-guy to come in and wire up the building. How does that sound?”

She bit her lip to keep from saying anything, so he just bowled forward, “Great! Come in after work so I can show you what I’m thinking of.”

Then he left.

Bewildered, she sat down in her chair and logged into her computer, only jumping a little bit when the phone rang.

“Hello, Felicity Smoak, IT department. How can I help you?”

“Miss Smoak, this is Walter Steele. I need you to come to my office as soon as possible. Don’t tell anyone where you’re going,” and then he hung up.

\---

Felicity noticed that Rebecca wasn’t at her desk, but Walter’s door was open so she went right in.

“Mr. Steele?”

“Miss Smoak, yes, we have to be quick. No one can see you up here and we have about five minutes before Ms. Klein gets back from her break.”

Any confusion about her being up in the head office instantly went away. This was familiar.

“I want you to figure out everything you can about this notebook,” he said, holding up a small leather book that she already knew everything about. “Where it was made, how it was purchased, literally any detail you can give me is never too small.”

She nodded, “Yes, sir.”

“And Felicity,” Walter said slowly, his eyes scanning the office one last time before moving in closer to her, lowering his voice, “I asked Josiah Hudson, our head of security, to look into the same subject matter. He died the next day under questionable circumstances. What I may be asking of you, this mystery, are you sure you want to do this?”

“Yes. I hate mysteries,” Felicity said, trying to force herself into a smile, “They bug me. They need to be solved.”

Somehow, between the time-travel and the losing her job and the mob wars coming to the forefront and the Huntress willing to burn down the entire city in her fiery revenge, she’d forgotten about the looming shadow in the soon-to-be-future.

The Undertaking.

Walter looked at her carefully, his gaze noticing her shaking hands holding the book with a vice grip.

“Felicity,” his smooth voice jerked her out of the tunnel-vision on the cover, “Are you alright?”

Any sort of words died in her dry mouth. She tried to swallow and put her words together, but her head was spinning. She stumbled.

Walter’s hands grabbed her arms and held her upright, and she was being placed in a chair as she tried valiantly to hold her head straight and keep it from lolling around. Walter was saying something, but his voice seemed so far away.

There was something on top of the dizziness, on top of the blackening vision. The sudden, impending feeling of doom.

Malcolm Merlyn. Malcolm Merlyn was going to destroy them all if she didn’t do the exact right thing at the exact right time.

And that was terrifying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave comments! Feel free to follow me on angelaandmels.tumblr.com for updates on this story or on any of my other fanfics. Sending me some specific prompts is a good way to fight off writer's block and something I really appreciate. Thank you for reading!


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